The Head and The Heart
by AlwaysCastle
Summary: She's had an epiphany...and for once in her life, she will embrace it wholeheartedly. Now Complete
1. The head and the Heart

**I moved this to it's own Fanfiction because I decided to keep it going.****was once part of**_** "My collection of Oneshots" **_**I'll be updating after each new episode pretty much because I am hoping they'll put a therapy session in there every episode. Or at least a few more times. Anyway. here it is!**_**  
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_**The head and the Heart**_

"I lied. Before."

"What do you remember?"

"I remember Everything."

Kate curls even more into herself, a move contradicting her willingness to be open with this psychiatrist. She never thought she'd be one of those people. But she's just been so emotional and lost, she doesn't know what else to do. Her body is surprisingly still, eyes wide and moist. She still looks thin in her face, almost hollow. Although there is so much on her mind, the only thing she can't help focusing more on is Castle. She's never been so consumed by anyone before, Other than her mothers case. She is painfully aware of her feelings as of late -And it scares her. It scares her because she is very conscious of how much she wants to be with him. But she keeps making excuses for herself.

"And what happened?" The psychiatrist asks. Kate, who's been blank and clutching at both her legs, lifts her head from resting on her kneecaps and looks off past him. She plays with the fabric of her pant leg absently.

A far away look comes across her features. As if remembering every single detail all at once like a movie montage. "I remember giving the eulogy..." She starts, voice low and raspy, but calm. "I looked over at Castle..." His name on her lips sends a pleasant shiver through her.

The psychiatrist notices, senses her brief hesitation and she tries to hide a sudden blush of her skin. "Go on." He encourages. His voice not conveying that he saw any such thing.

"And then I started to finish. Before I really knew what was happening, Castle is yelling my name and a pain enters my chest soon after. I hit the ground in a blur, Castle on top of me...and then..I couldn't focus on anything else but him because he said...he said he..." Kate trails off, the lump in her throat becoming unbearable. She covers her mouth with her hand and her face softens significantly from the stern look she had before.

"What did he say?"

A tear escapes her eye. Her hand comes down from her mouth and she looks the Psychiatrist in the eyes. "He said he loves me..." She looks up at the ceiling, as if trying to stop the rest of the tears that threaten. The office goes silent. A silence so thick she just wants to get up and leave. After another moment too long, The psychiatrist leans forward in his chair.

"And how do _you_ feel, about him?" He asks not realizing that it's the most difficult question to ask, with the easiest answer.

Kate opens her mouth closing it and opening it again. She rests back against the chair with a long sigh. The psychiatrist mirrors her actions but with this knowing look on his face that annoys her. She rolls her eyes upward in that way of hers, blowing the air out of her cheeks that clearly suggests it's a stupid question. And yet, she can't bring herself to answer him. The answer came to her before he even finished asking his obvious question. And now she is shaking again because she's containing her feelings.

"Okay, Let me ask this then. " He starts, folding one leg over the other too comfortably. "This 'partnership', with Castle. Is it enough?" He asks.

she unconsciously shakes her head, and then bites her lip looking down. She's just realized she's been fiddling with her mothers ring. "I'd like to say it is."

"But it isn't, is it?" He asks, although it doesn't really sound like a question.

Again Kate bites down on her lip, almost too hard. "I'd like it to be." She finally responds. "But...I don't know how...I don't..I don't think can because I don't know who I am." A panic feeling enters her chest as such a confession. She told Castle this already, that she doesn't know who she is without her mothers case.

"Hmm." He says, bringing a hand up to his chin. Kate frowns. "That's understandable."

"What do you mean?" She asks irritated. This is the part where she's going to hear things she doesn't want to be told. Because she already knows.

"Lets see. You were 19 when your mother died."

"She was Murdered." Kate seethes at the casual way he starts to list her tragic life.

"Yes. And you dropped out of college to join the Academy?"

She nods.

"What were you going to school for?"

"A few things I guess. I mean... I was only 19, still trying to find myself you know." She pauses, pursing her lips. She blinks a few times and looks away from him.

"And now. You're one of the youngest women to ever make homicide detective with the NYPD, You help find closure and justice to victims and their families."

She nods her head, brow creased. "That's what I _do_." She states, not getting where he's going with this.

"No Detective Beckett, It's also who you _are_. Not many people have the drive and passion you have. That's who you are. A strong woman who knows what she wants and how to get it."

"But I don't know what I want!" She almost yells exasperated. Her voice echos about the large room. But she does. She doesn't only want justice for her mother, but for everyone else out there. And inadvertently that drive has made her passionate in everything she does.

"But you do. Your just fighting it. Your making it harder than it is."

"I'm not." She argues. She knows he's right, she just hates being told so.

He sighs, not in agitation, but in a calm way that tells her this session is over. He looks down at the file on the table between them. "Perfect place to end today. How about you think on that, and we'll schedule an appointment for next week."

Kate unwraps her arms from around her knees and gets up, her legs aching in protest from having been bent into her body for the last hour, and so tightly. She nods at him, biting down on her bottom lip and leaves his office. She wipes at her cheeks feeling the tears drying on her face and making her skin feel tight. She brings a hand through her hair and frowns in concentration. She finds herself outside not a few minutes later, and blindly heading home without much thought.

Already her mind is reeling. She does know what she wants...she wants to find her mothers killer...but she also wants a normal life and a normal relationship. Preferably one with Castle. But she's been so comfortably miserable in the life she has been living since she joined the Academy...that she has no idea how to do that. She's convinced herself that she can't have that until her mother is brought to justice. She's the one and done type. And if she's going to try it with Castle, those walls she's built for so long need to come down.

But..There is that fear..The one that sets in after a particularly hard case. The one where she feels relieved she finally solved the murder for the family, but afraid she'll never solve her own. She died that day. Most of her was murdered along with her mother and she's still trying to revive herself. But what if she never catches the killer? What if she can't resurrect herself?

Does that mean she will never find true Happiness? It shouldn't. She should be able to be strong enough to find that happiness _despite_ her lack of justice. People do it everyday. All those families she has helped. Even though they have lost someone close to them, they have or will move on. But _She_ can't. Why. Why can't she let herself be happy – Why can't she let herself live?

Maybe she's not as strong as everyone thinks she is. Well...Everyone is wrong. She's lying to herself and she's lying to the very person she could truly be with in the most wonderful of ways. She's just scared. Because the life she's been leading is the only one she knows and she doesn't know how to be anyone else.

She's got this wall she's been forging for years that not even she knows how to tear it down. And until recently...She's come to realize that maybe even that wall is a lie...most of it anyway. Castle. He's done it. He has gotten through this far. And the question is. Why can't she let him in the rest of the way?

It's a battle between her head and her heart.

**This was difficult. And I am still unsure...but. **** so very very hard to do. Beckett in my eyes just became more complicated. Because now, we know her emotions. She's just hit us with a new side of her we have never seen before. And although now that helps us write things she could say in an emotional situation. I feel like I still had to tread lightly to stay in character. I want to wait thus idea out and see more Kate In therapy before I write another chapter. I am very curious to see what else she confesses.**

**In the mean time, Please review!  
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	2. Letting Go

**Spoilers for "Heroes & Villains" if you have not yet seen it. GO SEE IT!**

**Chapter Two**

_**Letting Go**_

_"Don't be so driven by the past that you throw away your future." _Kate sits in the same chair she sat in around the same time last week. She's had a lot to think about since then - the case and the situation Officer Hastings was in helped the thought process along considerably. Kate hopes that the officer will find what Kate is also looking for. Like herself, She has someone who seems to always be there for her. They both are very lucky._  
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"Good afternoon, Detective Beckett." The psychiatrist walks in startling Kate out of her prier thoughts.

"Hello." She acknowledges him from her curled up position. He gives her a kind smile and sits in his own chair crossing one leg over the other. It's been a long past few days, with the three possible killers and finally finding the right one. Along with the constant emotional struggle and keeping herself in check while in close proximity to Castle.

"I heard you closed your case. A super hero huh?" He asks, starting off with some light small talk. Perhaps to make her feel comfortable.

"Yes." She answers thinking back to Officer Hastings who was the superhero in the end, but not the killer. Kate reflects briefly to how close she actually felt to the case. How similar she was to The Lone Vengeance. She understands it, maybe a little too much. And then there was the whole Writer and Muse thing.

_"A writer and his muse solving crime." _Castle's voice enters her mind. _"Just like us."_ she thinks back to before those elevator doors closed, her and Castle looking on as the Muse and her Writer started to kiss.

A flush enters Kate's cheeks at the thought, because the only thing she could think about doing then was kissing Castle. And perhaps wondering if her writer was thinking the same thing – because he got awkward and said he'd see her tomorrow, almost embarrassed like. She knew what he was thinking. She thought it was cute and didn't resist the unmistakable grin on her face she just could not hide. And the longing looks. He seemed to miss them - And then she could only reply with a slight hum before he hurried off.

"Detective?" Kate blinks a few times and refocuses on the man across from her.

"Hmm?"

"You seem distracted today." He observes."Have you given any thought about our last session?" He then asks, leaning forward to gather his notes.

_ Have I ever_

Kate falls further into the cushions bringing her feet closer to her. "I have." Again she thinks back to the advice she gave.

"And?"

"Your right. I do know what I want..I just...it's complicated." She says with a sigh, bring a hand up to weave into her hair.

"I see... then lets make it _un_complicated." She frowns but lets him continue. "Tell me what it is you want for yourself, and we will go from there."

"I want...I want a real relationship. A personal life." She says easily, a little surprised with herself. She leans her elbow on the arm rest and rests her head in her hand, playing with her hair. "I realize that I don't allow myself one. I dive into my work."

"How is that complicated?"

"Because I...I am afraid." Her head comes out of her hand and she looks towards the floor.

"Of what?"

She grits her teeth, becoming annoyed, but realizes this is the process. "I don't want to lose anyone else. It goes back to what I said before to Castle. I don't feel as though I can have a relationship with _anyone_ until I solve my mothers murder." She explains but he says nothing so she continues. "It's dangerous, and everyone I love has become effected by it, and once that danger is gone, I feel that _then_ I can pursue what it is I want."

She feels strongly about her confession, but the look on his face says otherwise. "You can have what you want right now." He says.

"How?" She sits up.

"You've known Castle for what? Almost 4 years now?"

"That's correct." She nods.

"He's been with you for everything. He's seen what your mothers case does to you, and he's stuck around."

She sees where he's going with this and cuts him off. "Yes but not without danger...and consequence. "

"Your an NYPD Detective, of course there is going to be danger. He knows this, and yet, he's still with you despite the consequences that might follow."

_Always_

"Yes but-"

"He's already in it with you. There is no difference between him following you around now as a 'Partner', then if he was doing the same thing has something much more. And he is more than a partner to you already isn't he? You just haven't acted on it. And you want to."

"I..." she trails off, mouth agape and then closes it, uncrossing her legs to rest on the floor and crossing her arms instead, about ready to close off.

"Your letting your past get in the way of a possible future. Why deny yourself something that is clearly right in front of you?" He asks her this like it's the simplest explanation.

And it is. Which she hates – Because she doesn't like being told things she should already know. She told Officer Hastings this, and the women went right ahead and let go of her tragic pass, heading right into the arms of the man who has stuck by her, and loves her.

"You know this Detective." He tells her.

"But I don't know how to let go."

"Well that's what your here for."

**Thoughts? I'm iffy... I was hoping for some more glimpse into her therapy. BUT! if those first lines I put in the beginning of this chapter is not evidence enough of her progress, I don't what else is! Please review! oh yea, and even though i did not get to many reviews, thanks to those who have, and who added this fic to their alerts. it's almost just as good :D  
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	3. Not Ready

**So I have nothing to go on, except for that amazing pining look Kate gave Castle as they talked about Beating the odds.. omg that smile she had on her face! Gives me such hope!...Anyway So this chapter is going to be a bit of back tracking. I'll do the best I can...**

_**Not Ready**_

"Are you ready for this?" The psychiatrist asks Kate the following week.

Kate removes her fingers from her mouth and looks at him across the room. "Can I be honest?" She asks strongly with a slight amount of uncertainty in there somewhere.

"Be as candid as you like." He responds without blinking.

Kate sits up in her chair. "I don't want to do this." She says flatly, her arms uncrossing.

"Delve into the past?"

"Yes, I...Well I had a very interesting last few days, and at the end of it..I couldn't help but feel..." She pauses, still feeling strange about being so open with another person. "Hopeful." She finishes, looking right at him.

"And your afraid that talking about the past will put a damper in your new found hope."

"Yes exactly."

"You do understand why we have to do this?"

"I do bu-"

"You want to let go don't you – you want to keep taking these steps in beating the odds right?"

_ Ironic choice of words. _"Of course bu-"

"Then it has to be dealt with before we move forward, before _you_ can move forward." He clasps his hands in front of him, bringing a leg up to lounge over his other one the way men do. He's getting comfortable for a talk she's clearly going to struggle with.

She sighs in defeat but stays rigid in her chair.

"Detective Beckett." He starts, tapping a finger over one of his knuckles. "I understand that your father took your mother's death quite hard."

Her eyes widen.

"He and my mother were very close...I always envied and wanted the sort of relationship they had. And my father was devastated when she was killed...He lost himself, and turned to drinking." Kate says as evenly as she possibly can, although she's shaking.

"How did this affect you?"

Kate purses her lips and closes her eyes briefly. Her heart hammering in her chest already. She wishes this could all be over but knows this has to be done. "I'd have to say it affected me a great deal." Her professional voice is intact as a way to detach herself, but she finds it difficult to keep that persona in this setting.

"I can imagine, but how did that make you _feel_?"

_ Really? _"Not only had I lost my mother, but I felt like I was losing my father as well. We haven't been as close as we once were since...And I can't say I don't miss it." She looks down at her wrist where she's been fiddling with her fathers watch.

The psychiatrist sees this. "Is that his?' He points at her wrist without unclasping his hands.

"Yes...for the life I saved." She says quietly.

"So you helped your father find his way then."

She only nods.

"Couldn't have been easy." He remarks. "That is a lot of responsibility to fall on someone.

"I managed." She stops playing with the watch and just rests her hand there.

"Your good at that aren't you?" He asks, almost like he's accusing her of something in a subtle condescending sort of way.

"I don't follow." She cocks her head to one side and steals herself as her hand tightens around her own wrist.

"You couldn't have helped your father with a little difficulty. He must have slipped sometimes."

"Well of course." She frowns not understanding what's just happened. "There were times where I was proud of him for lasting more then a week, and yes I admit it was disappointing at times to find him back down the rabbit hole after I tried so hard to keep him out." And edge creeps into her voice. "I gave up for a while...can't say I'm proud of it..." She's been talking sort of fast and stops for a moment to gather herself. "I had a hard time trusting him for a while." She admits.

The psychiatrist nods slowly, regarding her for a moment. "Three things I got out of this conversation so far." He leans a little forward and holds up one finger. "you have a hard time with trust, which isn't all that surprising because everyone has this problem. But you let it fuel the way you deal with your life." He holds up a second finger calmly. "As you said before. 'you manage.' You approach everything with one foot out the door. I'm going to stick my neck out here and suggest this is what you do with your past relationships."

She opens and closes her mouth.

"Why." He asks, without explaining his third finding. And although he can easily tell her why, he wants her to say it or she's not going to get any further with her progress.

"It's easier that way.. I can't get hurt." She replies.

"You can't really believe that Detective." He says leaning back into his chair. "Tell me about your past relationships."

She immediately thinks of Will. She recounts this with The psychiatrist, who listens in this irritatingly calm way she's grown to hate. And then continues on with Demming where she pauses because she's not sure how to explain it without exposing herself about Castle and how he left her that summer. "And I broke things off with him." She decides to end it there.

"Why, seems sudden." But he pushes her.

"Because..." She sighs. "Because Castle invited me to the Hamptons. And I was confused."

"Why's that."

_ If he asks why one more time... _"Does it matter?" She asks instead, getting frustrated. "I ended up alone that summer anyway because Castle went with his ex wife instead." Her voice drips with disdain and a permanent frown forms on her face, arms crossing in front of her as her legs come up in the chair.

"It was that moment you realized your feelings for Castle."

"Yes." She says through her teeth.

"Have you had any other relationships since then?" He ignores her irritation because he knows he's getting somewhere.

"Josh."

"And how did that go?"

"It ended."

"Care to explain?"

Silence. She's tired of sitting in this chair and she's tired of this mans questions, and she doesn't like the exposed feeling she has. Her heart quickens once again, her hands shaking so she clasps them tightly in her lap. "It lasted a while...longer than I care to admit...because I let it..."

"What do you mean."

"I had my foot out the door." She says, mimicking his previous comment and her own that time when she and Castle thought they were exposed to radiation. She waits for him to say something but he doesn't. Obviously it's her turn to explain everything. "Josh...was a rebound." Her eyes widen. But she knew this. So she continues. "And it was easy, because he wasn't around..." She pauses again, thinking. "Castle..we had a fight about this once."

The psychiatrist raises an eyebrow

Kate continues on through. "Castle said that I hide in relationships with men I don't love." She finds she has a lump forming in her throat. Remembering the fight, and how it hurt to hear him say those things. Because they are so true.

"I'm sensing a theme." The psychiatrist notes.

Kate inclines her head in question. Not trusting herself to comment.

"You choose men who aren't fully available to you. It's easier that way. Do you know why?" He trails off with a question, staring her down as if waiting for her to get it.

She only blinks. But decides to answer. "Because I can't get hurt that way..." She offers. "I admit that I only dated Josh because I was upset about Castle...but then he came back and...Josh was just...Josh was just safe."

He nods and then the third finger is counted. "You've become very good at compartmentalizing the things that truly affect you. You've built up these walls resulting in the inability to be intimate. I can see that you have opened yourself up a few times, where you have gotten hurt. And then, when Castle left for the summer. You closed up again, perhaps for the last time, with Josh."

"I didn't let him in no, if that is what your saying."

"But you've let Castle in." He lets that sink in.

She's lost count of how many times she's opened and closed her mouth during this session. She nods finally. "Yes. I suppose. I've told him things I never told Demming, or Josh."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what _do_ you mean?"

"Castle is already in."

Kate stares at him. Last session he told her that Castle was already involved with her life. But this time he is telling her that Castle is already in..in what..her heart?

"Why else would you be fighting this so much? You let Castle in a long time ago, perhaps before he left for the Hamptons last summer. I think you know this, and that is why you got involved with Josh. To Hide from these feelings you've had for Castle."

_ You hide in these no where relationships with men you don't love._

"The only thing you need to do is let go of this mistrust. Obviously you trust the man."

"With my life..." She says quietly. "Can I tell you something that might not make sense?" She then says, thinking back through this whole session, not being able to believe that she got all this in, in one hour and still have five minutes left.

"That's what I am here for."

Kate thinks back to the week she just had. What a woman did to keep her romantic ideas alive, and what risks she took for the love of her husband. This week was about the prospect of beating the odds. That romantic sense that anything is possible. Her little remark about 'it's what the great love stories are about.' The look on castle's face when he said they hoped they make it. She did too...and she didn't just mean the woman and her husband. She hopes he read through the ever thin lines. "I understand everything you just told me. Truly I do. But...I just don't... I just don't feel ready. I don't know how to explain it other than I am just not ready."

But She really Believes in it.

"That's okay. As long as you understand where these other feelings are stemming from..I say it's okay to not be ready. But I can see you want to be, and that is progress."

**I don't know what I did here...Did any of this make sense to you? I was trying to find the source of her mistrust, touch on how she's so distant with her feelings, and then end it with how she's just not ready. I mean...Last episode only gave me that she looks like she wants it. But is not ready yet. And sometimes I feel like I am just not ready. You know? UGH! I don't know... this was hard. PLEASE review! I really need your feedback.**

**Also. This last episode was really just a filler...if you haven't already noticed. It went know where and they only gave us the awesome thing Kate said. And I was like "YAY she's starting to believe in magic!" (get my epi reference?)**

**I don't know about you, but I am really looking forward to the next episode with what looks like the return of the 3XK. Damn Jerry! I am hoping there will be a moment where Kate is really there for Castle. And more than the last time with a simple hand on the knee. Not that we'll get a kiss. But a good moment would be nice. Anyway REVIEW!**


	4. Need

****_(So I have been thinking about it, and I thought they should talk about the rabbit hole to go with her PTSD so I added a good conversation about it. hope this helps) _****

**P.S. There will be a companion piece to this particular chapter in my other story "My collection of one shots"**

_**Need**_

"I understand that it was you who came to me." The psychiatrist is not sitting in his usual seat like he usually is when Kate walks into her afternoon appointment. The detective in her throws out those warning lights and she slowly sinks into her chair. She has nothing to say to this, so she waits him out.

The psychiatrist, who is standing at his desk, picks up a file, probably hers, and walks around his desk to finally take a seat in his own chair. The file flops onto the table between them the sound echoing throughout the spacious room, making her uneasy. " And so far everything has been on your terms, since you've been willing to come here yourself. But it has recently come to my attention, detective, that you may be suffering from PTSD."

She stiffens "But I'm fine..I was cleared" She says, shaking her head, her pulse racing. She looks down and away from him.

"Yes I understand that, but you see PTSD develops differently from person to person. While the symptoms most commonly develop in the hours or days following a traumatic event, it can sometimes take weeks, months, or even years before they appear." He is saying but she's not hearing him she feels herself becoming angry and it takes every once of self control to not get up and leave this office in an feeble attempt to run from her inner fears.

Kate only nods her head, looking down at her lap. Somehow she feels betrayed. "Who told you?" She asks voice quivering, she can't help it.

The psychiatrist sits back fixing her with a small smile. "I'm not at liberty to say." He states and then leans forward again to collect her file. He opens it, giving it a once over before looking back up at her.

By now she has curled herself into her chair, arms crossed and jaws clenched as she stares at the blank boring wall. Her mind is flickering to all possible suspects. But no one knows she's been coming back. Although they all knew she did have to come here before she was cleared. But who would have the guts to go against her?

"I can see your upset right now. It's only natural to want to avoid painful memories and feelings. But if you try to numb yourself and push your memories away, your PTSD will only get worse. "

She frowns deeply, feeling like a teenager being lectured about her life choices. She takes hold of her mothers ring tightly still not willing to look at him. She's known she has PTSD, for a very long time now. The last therapist she went to, back when she lost her mother suggested it. It's no news to her now that it's surfaced again.

"You can't escape your emotions completely detective. I know you try, but they emerge under stress or whenever you let down your guard. Trying to do so is exhausting. The avoidance will ultimately harm your relationships, your ability to function, and the quality of your life."

_Don't you think I know this. _She thinks to herself as she lift her eyes to meet his. "What do I do?" She asks.

" What we have been doing, only we're going to talk about what's been happening now." He takes a pen from his shirt pocket. "Tell me about your first case back on active duty...from what I've been told, you froze up when a suspect drew a gun on you." He says this slowly, softening the blow a little before she has to relive everything, including the funeral and everything leading up to it, although she wont confess anything about the hanger.

Kate stares off past him out the window gathering herself before answering. She sniffles again and he offers her a box of tissues, which she takes. Still she does not speak. Her eyes drawn to the clouds outside the window. They are a few stories up, the window cracked slightly letting in the faint sounds of the city below. The sounds are drowned out and replaced with the drumming of the funeral –to the feel of her tight death grip on the Captains casket – how the mornings beautiful weather contradicted the storm clouds looming over everyone's heads, blanketing them in a sorrow that will forever linger inside her. She recalls the moments of her shooting first. Like a slow motion of torment. Watching the expression on Castle's face, hear the screams as she goes down in a shocking pain. She didn't hear the shot, she didn't see it coming. But someone wanted her dead.

"How do you shake that?" She finds herself asking.

"Hmm?" The psychiatrist asks picking up a pen and watching her intently.

"How do you shake the feeling that your not safe anymore? I feel scared all the time. I was fine...at least I thought I was until I came back, and I got caught up in my own case, wanting to know who shot me..and I just...lost it. I lost control of all reasoning and I couldn't stop myself." She remembers Castle asking her to stop. "I thought I was ready. I was back in the field, standing outside the building about to rush in, Esposito asked me if I am ready...I brushed him off. Of course I was ready." She's saying all this like she's on some sort of autopilot. This jumbled script where the part that supposed to make sense comes out in a sea of uncharted waters. She doesn't do this. She doesn't share she keeps it all in. But now that she's opening up, she can't help herself.

"Before I know it I am chasing down the suspect and he pulls a gun on me. And It's like I am back at the funeral. I froze. My arms shaking and this terror building inside me. I couldn't even hold my own gun. The one thing that is supposed to make me feel safe..." She trails off in a whisper.

The pen the psychiatrist has been poised with this entire time rests on the paper now scribbled with neat writing, depicting Kate's state of mind. He looks upon this strong woman who's shaking in her chair, reliving her traumatic past few months.

"How have you been sleeping?" He asks ready with his pen again. They are just going to plow on through this while she's still ready to share. "I have a few prescriptions you can try, see how you feel about them."

"I sleep Terrible." She admits. " But no. I don't want to take any pills...I really do feel okay when I am at work now...honestly. It's just when I am alone in my apartment."

"What happens when you are alone?"

"I'm scared." She says quietly. "I am afraid of everything, The shadows, I lock all my windows, and double check the locks on my doors...I keep my gun on my nightstand instead of the drawer. And every little sound makes me jumpy. I am anxious _all_ the time." She list everything off, becoming irritated at herself for feeling so weak. Like this little girl who's afraid of the dark and yet still refuses a night light. Only she's not even that little girl because she keeps her door open and the light on in the bathroom just in case.

"And how do you feel when you are at the 12th?"

"Ever since Castle helped me that first case...I..I feel safe." She smiles a little.

The Psychiatrist looks up from the file and cocks his head to one side curiously. "What did he do for you?" He's ready with his pen again.

"He saw me freeze up. The first time..." She says and her face softens. "The second time I am standing on the other end of a shotgun, and I start to freeze up again, I'm terrified, but there is Castle right behind me, telling me 'I got this'... The more he says this to me, believing in me, the more confident I become..." She blinks looking up. "In the end I arrested the suspect." Again she smiles but feels confused which must show on her face because the psychiatrist puts down his pen and paper on the coffee table and leans forward.

"You seem conflicted." He observes.

"I...shouldn't need him to talk me through something as simple as taking down a suspect. I have been doing it most of my adult life, and long before I met him." She says angry at herself but still grateful she has him, and also afraid to lose the security he seems to equip her with by just being around.

There is a very long pause where Kate becomes uncomfortable, and sees that he's looking back at her file. His face changes a little and she's afraid of what's to come.

"I am going to back track for a moment to something you said last session." He looks at her his head in a downcast position.

"Okay." She replies hesitantly.

The psychiatrist regards her for a moment. "The rabbit hole?" He asks looking down and flipping a few pages back in his notes in her file.

She freezes.

He reads them over. She sees his eyes scanning the page and then he nods, as if understanding something. She realizes, that he has notes from her previous visits. The ones she had to attend after her mothers murder. She tenses up and wonders where this conversation is suddenly going to go.

"Yes, I see now. You mentioned this a few years back, to your other therapist." He says mulling it over it seems. "You've been down this Rabbit hole yourself?" He questions.

Kate panics. This is what she's afraid of. "Y..yes. I have."

"With your mother's case." Her eyes start to tear up and she can only nod. "Do you feel as though this stems from your fathers own struggles with addiction?"

Kate stares at him opened mouthed. And then this look comes across her face. Almost as if to say _how dare you. _But this _is_ therapy, and she did _voluntarily _come in here. She **asked** for it. She couldn't have thought this wasn't going to come up sometime. Kate loses eye contact with him. And then nods once sharply biting down hard on her lip.

"I...well I wouldn't say that. Everyone has something of a vice, don't you they?" She asks, and when he seems to agree with her she continues. "My fathers' was alcohol...mine is work," _and Castle _"And my work started because of my mothers' case. And yes...I have let myself...'go down the rabbit hole,' and I promised myself I wouldn't go there again." She says with a heavy sigh because she _did_ go there again.

"But you did."

"Yes..."

He pauses, as if considering his next question and how hard it might be for her to talk about it. He places his pen on her file. She hears it's soft thud and waits for it. "Detective. Would you say you went there, when you got back from your father's cabin?"

She doesn't hesitate. "Yes...I did."

"How did that feel?"

"Like I was drowning. I went to a place I am truly afraid of. I became this person I never wanted to be...I. I completely lost myself...and I couldn't stop it...if.." She licks her lips nervously and looks down at her hands in her lap, and then purses her lips realizing she's making his case against her with this next confession. "If it weren't for Castle this time around..." She shakes her head "I'd still be down there."

He nods very slowly but fixes her with a look. "Speaking of vices." Another pause as if for dramatic affect. "You _do_ need him."

**_(Hope the new add on tied in with the rest of it. if it doesn't make sense just ask. I'll clarify if need be.)_**

**So I decided a second chapter was in order. I am going on the notion that Kate has always suffered from PTSD. Her mothers murder was obviously traumatic and then you have her getting shot which rises all these feelings, and up go those walls. As I said before this chapter started, there will a companion piece. An idea from another reader who suggested a therapy session with Castle. But! It will be as a one shot in **_**My collection of Oneshots **_**Sometime today or tomorrow.**

**Thank you all for adding me to your alerts/favorites, they are almost as good as reviews, but I would still like you to click that blue button next to the option for adds (it's really really easy) and write me a review! Thanks so much enjoy the rest of your week!**


	5. Almost

**Major Spoilers for "Kick the Ballistics." I had to ponder this one for a while...and pull myself together but here it is.**

_**Almost**_

The Psychiatrist senses a disturbance the second Kate walks into his office. She comes in with tension in her shoulders, and a crease in her brow. This air about her that suggests she's been mulling something over with a great deal of thought, and it's still upsetting her. She doesn't look at him as sh situates herself tightly in her usual seat. Kate leans forward on one knee that is bent into her body, her other leg dangling off the cushion. Her arms wrap around the one knee and her chin rests on it. Her green eyes seem out of focus almost covered by her now very long hair. Her mind is obviously elsewhere and in deep concentration. He gives her several minutes before he questions her.

"What happened this week?" He asks gently.

Kate removes her chin from her knee but still holds on. "I was reminded of some things...from the past...and I can't seem to let them go." She says, thinking of Coonan and the 3XK.

"Like what?" He's ready with a pen.

She sighs rubbing a hand over her warm cheek, resting her hand over her shoulder and leaning once again into her leg. "We thought the triple killer might be back." She starts.

The Psychiatrist only raises an eyebrow.

"He isn't..I mean he's out there...I just...this week was hard for most of us. Ryan had to deal with his gun being used in a murder...The same gun Jerry Tyson took from him and almost shot Castle with..." Her breath catches in her throat at the thought. She remembers being so scared for him, the relief flooding every vein in her body when she found him. She also remembers how torn he was, blaming himself for letting him get away. The haunted look in his eyes she still cannot understand. To her it felt like it ran much deeper... That night was the first time there was real physical contact, of the affectionate variety. Minor, but also a big deal in a way.

"How did Ryan cope?" The Psychiatrist asks. Kate looks up at him, surprised the question isn't directed toward a certain writer.

"Like any cop would. It was his gun. He was ashamed of himself for letting Tyson get the drop on him...But I am proud of him, He handled it the best way he could, and we were all there for him." She smiles for a moment. "We have this way of being there for each other, without getting emotional, or touchy feeling. In a way where we act like it's nothing, while subtly hinting that we are right here for each other."

"And it works for you?"

"It does...it's hard to explain. But it yes it works for us."

"So how did the case go?"

"Ryan really had to step up. Orchestrated this plan to get Ben lee's brother to confess, and also get Ben safely out of his family...and I know..." She pauses, seeing Ryan bent down over Ben trying to revive him. "I know it was a set up, but seeing Ryan trying to help Ben?" She stops, once again, her fingers resting on her lips.

"Reminded you of something a lot like it?"

She nods gravely. "Yes." She chokes out. She sees the look on Castle's face as Coonan presses the gun into his back. Hears the shot, and then herself trying to revive her mothers killer, his blood all over her hands. "Seeing Ryan down on the floor like that...It just..It took me right back there. To when I had to shoot Coonan... and I just... I don't want to go back." She whispers the last part, looking right at him.

He nods. "You don't have to."

Kate frowns. "It's hard not to."

"I agree. But it's all in how you approach it, how it is you deal with the aftermath. In this case, talking about it helps, doesn't it. Because it's not buried inside you anymore. You don't have to bare it alone."

Kate nods in agreement. This does help immensely. She's able to get it off her chest, and finds it's easier to let it go. If not find reason in the situations. And talking about it once before, she does realize that she had no choice, and she still found more answers regarding her mothers murder with or without Coonan.

"What else happened this week?" He then asks after Kate relaxes a bit.

She brushes her long chestnut hair behind one ear and starts to fiddle with her mothers ring. "Castle asked me if I remember anything." She says to the ring.

"Oh?"

She purses her lips closing her eyes for a moment. "I told him I still don't remember..." She looks up. "But I don't think he believes me." She shrugs a little, tilting her head to one side and biting her lip. She's still not sure what to think.

"How do you know?"

She rolls her eyes as if he should know this. "He's Castle...If I have learned anything about him these past few years, it's his ability to pick up on even the subtle things. He has this gift of observation, granted he's a writer...but...although I hate to say this, he knows me quite well."

"Why do you say that?"

"That he knows me?"

"That you hate it."

She opens her mouth...then closes it, and frowns at herself. "Maybe not so much _anymore_." She replies honestly.

"And you did before?"

"Oh yes. Before it was annoying." She rolls her eyes at the thought "He was this new person to me. I didn't really know him other than what they said in magazines. He was played out to be this playboy writer. At the time he seemed incapable to take anything seriously." _But attractive, and I dare say, ruggedly handsome._

"But he was your Favorite Author?"

"Is. Yes, Well his writing helped me a great deal when I lost my mother. I can't say I wasn't a bit disappointed at the time to meet him in person." She admits.

"And now?"

_Still attractive. If not more. _"He's grown on me." She supplies, and then leans back dropping her mothers ring back into her shirt bringing a finger to twirl in her hair. "I've come to realize the kind of person he really is. I was proud of him this week, more so than I have ever been I think."

"Why's that?" He's sticking with short questions today, seeing as she is so willing to answer them, and so freely.

"Philip Lee had some information for us and wanted to make a deal. He said he knew where Jerry was headed, and what name he was going to use. He wanted 15 to 25 with parole and 10 for giving us Jerry's alias. I told Castle, that this might be our chance to finally get 3XK." She pauses her face becoming slightly serious. " I knew how much he wanted to catch him...but he said no."

The Psychiatrist raises an eyebrow almost in surprise.

"Castle told me it was a set up. That Jerry Tyson gave that gun to Phillip lee knowing he'd use it, that there was a good chance he _knew_ we would eventually get to Phillip. I said so what," she shrugs as if standing in front of castle now. "But Castle wasn't convinced. His theory was that nothing Tyson said to Philip was the truth." Her smile grows wider now. "He said, Jane Hurtsfelt deserved justice. Philip deserved life in prison, and he didn't want me to make the deal."

"You seem proud." He comments.

She bites her lip suppressing her smiles. "We'll get 3XK. He said to me. But we'll do it _right._" She looks down and covers her mouth with her fingers, a gleam in her eye.

" He sounds like a real cop." He crosses one leg over the other and fixes her with a small smile.

"That's what I told him." Kate's heart fills with warmth. "He's really grown as a person. And I owe a lot of my own growth to him. Without him...I don't think I could have gotten through most of the things we have faced together."

The Psychiatrist gives her a moment to reflect, and come to the understanding that Castle is a great deal important to her. He can see how much more open she has become, to him, and the idea of letting Castle all the way in. To being ready.

"Let me ask you this."

She looks up with a raised eyebrow, dropping her fingers from her hair, and releasing her bottom lip from her teeth.

"Let's say Castle confronts you. You say you think he doesn't believe you."

She nods, "Mhmm," and becomes nervous. She's thought about this possibly coming up, and still is unsure how to answer.

"Would you tell him the truth then? Seems to me he wont take no for an answer." He almost warns.

Kate ponders for a moment. "I'm almost ready to." She confesses with a small yet serious smile.

He believes her. He just hopes nothing else gets in her way.

**Took me forever! And I don't even know if I like this chapter. BUT! I assure you, even with just the promo for next Monday, I can say I have a butt load of ideas and I haven't seen the episode yet. That one is going to be awesome I think! As for this chapter? Eh... Please review!**

**P.S. The 3XK episode was the first time she actually used physical affection right? I mean I know it was just a hand on his knee but there was emotion behind it. Like a tiny milestone. Am I right?**


	6. Authors  Note

**Authors Note: In case anyone gets confused. there is no new chapter. i revised chapter 4! I added a conversation right after it ended before. So please go back and read. reviews are my favorite!  
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	7. When does it stop being enough?

**(Major spoilers for Eye of the Beholder) I got another Therapy scene to go by! And It's what I hoped it to be. I knew she was going to get all fired up and spout things off, so that was great to finally see her back in there, and so comfortable I might add.  
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**If you haven't already, go back to chapter 4 because I added some things to the end. **Anyway! Here is my take on the scene we saw and things following.**  
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_**When does it stop being enough?**_

"So did Castle go out with her again?" The psychiatrist asks when Kate lets herself into his office the next morning before her shift.

"No." She says with a huge smile she hasn't been able to hide since yesterday. She kicks off her shoes in front of her chair and takes a seat, still smiling.

"You seem very happy about that." He watches her with a small smile.

"Well of course I am." She leans back in her chair very relaxed, legs up and steady on the cushion. She's beyond relieved that Castle didn't go out with Serena. The entire case she felt sick to her stomach and in panic mode. Her emotions were all over the place. But there was really nothing she could do about it, and she had a very hard time not showing how envious she was. She swears she thought she was going to cry when she found the two kissing it the hallway. But she brought that on herself when she told Castle to bring her on a date. _Stupid stupid..._ She thought then, and still thinks now. But she's glad it's over.

He regards her for several moments to the point were she's now becoming nervous. She looks down at the coffee cup she's holding, playing with the lid, and bites her lip. "That doesn't seem complicated." He remarks.

She frowns and looks up at him. "You know it is." She knows that the thought of Caste being with other women bothers her, to the extreme, and yet she still cannot bring herself to just go there with him.

He actually sighs at this. As if everything is going in circles and she just wont stop and find a medium. "Lets backtrack." He then says. "To why Serena bothered you so much." He gives her a chance to go there in her mind, and sees it play on her face.

"What? Do you want me to tell you that the thought of Castle being with other women makes me sick? That I am selfish and don't want him to be with anyone else?" She frowns deeply. "I don't have the right to tell him who he can be with."

"Do you think your being selfish?" He asks.

She opens and closes her mouth, but doesn't answer. Instead she purses her lips and looks away and out the large windows.

"All right." He takes her inability to answer as a yes, and that she's ashamed. So he decides to moves on. "Yesterday you said 'He's supposed to be...' and you then stopped yourself. What did you really want to say?"

"You know." She tells him resting her coffee on one knee and bringing a hand to her mouth.

"I do. But you've never actually said it out loud, you avoid ever expressing what it is your truly feeling, and I think you need to."

She sighs heavily, tears leaping to her eyes. "He's...he's supposed to..." _ Be with me..._ Her eyes go back to her coffee cup where a small drop of coffee struggles with it's hold on the lid. _Be in love with me. _"He's supposed to ...love...me." She finds it challenging to express this.

His face softens. "And you're scared." She nods "That he wont wait for you."

"Or that he will? What's that supposed to mean anyway?" She asks, going on the defensive.

"You tell me." He says coolly.

She suppresses the need to glare at him, holding her cup in both hands now, feeling the warmth radiate off it and onto her skin. It's almost too hot but she doesn't want to let go. She's afraid to tell him. Afraid of sounding completely absurd and selfish. She purses her lips, bringing her cup to rest on them and shakes her head.

"You can't hide forever." He tells her, and she gets this sinking feeling in her chest. "Your hiding things from me, if you want to be ready, as you say, then I need to know everything." She gets it. "So we can get you through this."

_Whatever this is. _She nods at him, "I'm letting it go to waste..." She says, through glassy green eyes, dark with emotion. Tears start to stream down her face, and her coffee cup shakes a little in her hand so she clutches it with both hands again. Closing her eyes she tries to reel herself back in, but it's proving to be difficult. Her head and her heart are fighting again. She feels as though she's stuck in reverse, and she doesn't know how else to handle it other than to just stop all together. She doesn't know how to move forward.

"What is?" He asks gently.

"My..._Feelings_ for Castle." She emphasizes on the word "Feelings" still not able to say that four letter word.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because...because I lost something I can't replace...and … when my mother was killed, something inside me changed, I don't know what it is, but I can't get it back. And I've thought about all possible things to help, or at least be good enough to fill the hole whatever it is has left...But I just... Nothing is ever enough."

"What about Castle?"

"I want him to be enough, I truly do, But..I need to fix..myself...first. I need to be ready before I dive in. I _want _to be ready...But I don't want to hurt like that again..."

"What makes you think he'll hurt you?"

"I don't know." She says honestly. "There is always that possibility...and I am afraid to chance it." She sniffles, wiping at her eyes with one hand. "But." She starts._ But if I never try I'll never know_.

The Psychiatrist waits her out, seeing a real struggle in her. One that he knows she needs to go through. She has a lot inside her that has gone unsaid for so long, he understands that baby steps are the only way to get her to reveal them all. Maybe even less than baby steps, miniscule strides to fixing herself. A self that has been broken and unattended for years.

"But I know that he has helped. From the moment I met him...he's been guiding me to a place...closer to myself then I have ever been. And even though I am not ready to go there right now...I just.. I am too attached to him, to let him go..."

"And you feel selfish for making him wait." He states.

"Exactly." She sounds utterly ashamed of herself. And she refuses to meet his gaze. She pauses, thinking back to when she thought Castle might have spent the night with Serena. How torn up she was and didn't know how she'd handle it if he did sleep with that woman. She's still afraid he wont wait forever. That maybe he'll find someone better than her, who will dive in with him and not make him wait for her to pull herself together..

"He pretty much asked me if he should wait." She says.

"Oh?"

"Yea..I told him it's obvious she really likes him..."

"And."

"He asked me if I thought he should peruse it."

"What did you tell him?"

Kate opens and closes her mouth. "I said 'suit yourself." She sighs at her own stubbornness.

He seems annoyed with her as well, if he's allowed to be, and leans his head into the palm of his hand. "What did you want to say?"

"I very well couldn't have said. No castle your supposed to be with me." She snorts at her absurdity.

"Why not?" He asks amused.

"You know why not." She says stopping an eye roll.

She takes a sip of her coffee, now going cold, finding her mouth has gone dry, She ponders in the silence he allows her. Castle has been around for nearly 4 years. He has plenty of material for several books and more. She's not an idiot. But she knows that this whole shadowing thing has become more then just research. She knows it has for her. He's her partner now. And she thinks she has been aware of this even before he said he loves her. For all they have been through, _together,_ that's proof enough that he's not going anywhere...

Kate sighs. "I know he'll wait for me...But I am worried about what that will do to him."

"What do you mean?"

"That maybe...if I take too long, he'll see I'm not worth it, that waiting around for me is a waste of his time." Even as she says it she realizes it's a stupid fear. But she can't help it. She knows he's been around this long, why would he go now?

"He's waited around all this time."

_ I don't deserve him _"Yes...but..now I have given him hope. It's selfish of me to dangle that in front of him and then not follow through. I'm terrified that the hope I gave him will run out...and he won't think it's enough anymore. For now maybe...but when does it _stop_ being enough?"

**I sat here for several hours on this. Worked on it, got up walked around, sat back down worked on it some more...pondered what to say, what not to say. So I just put it all out there. But I so badly want to know why it's so complicated. When she said "You know why it's complicated." and then he said "Only what you've told me." I want to _KNOW_ what she's told him! It's bugging me to know end!**

**On another note: Next episode looks fun and flirty, but it's the one after that I am most interested in. I wont spoil it, but if your a spoiler junky go look it up on youtube, because there are more promotional photos for 4x07 then there are for next weeks. (for now anyway.)**

**Bravo to those who thought I was listening to "fix you" by coldplay while writing this, cus I was. Go look up the Boyce Avenue ft Tyler Ward version! So good and deep!**

**As _always_ reviews are my favorite!**

**Oh and I have gotten almost 100 story alerts/favorites out of this. So THANK YOU! I do my best. :P**

**P.S. I keep thinking of things...Is it just me, or does Kate seem...very dependent on her therapist? I mean, yea she's going to him and stuff, but hopefully you know what I mean? **


	8. I can see it

**Spoilers for "_Demons_"**

_**I can see it.**_

Kate has a smile on her face. She's sitting in her usual seat, shoes kicked off on the floor and her legs up in the chair comfortably. Her elbow rests on the arm of the chair and her face lays in her palm. She's smiling because she's thinking back to how incredibly adorable Castle was this case. His almost childlike belief in the spirit world. She'll never admit to him that she isn't completely a skeptic. But she did have a lot of fun teasing him.

"Good morning, Kate." Dr. Burke walks in startling her out of her revere.

"Morning." She says almost dream like.

"So how was the case, did you catch the ghost?" He asks with amusement.

Kate laughs. "No. There were no ghosts, as I suspected." She shakes her head and rolls her eyes thinking of Castle again.

"So what happened?"

"It was detective Smith." She says, the smile fading from her face. The thought of another detective committing such an act. "He was in love with Melanie. She wanted to call it off with him...and apparently Smith couldn't let that happen. So he killed her. Killed Matt Benton and hid his body in the house to make it look like he killed his wife and ran off."

"So no ghosts or demons?"

"No."

"And what about Castle?"

"He still believes, although, I did tell him I'd believe in the _possibility,_ that we were led to the conclusion by the deceased Jackson Claire. _If._ He admitted there was no demon."

"And did he?"

"Without hesitation."

"See, your not completely a skeptic are you?" He asks knowingly.

She smiles as if hiding a deep dark secret. "Maybe not entirely."

"But you always used to be."

"Yes. I admit, that I have always been skeptical of things like Paranormal, magic, and fate...but being around Castle? I don't know, he makes it seem so real to me. That there are possibilities for such things." She pauses, thinking to their little investigation and her teasing him about hearing a ghost. "But that doesn't mean I don't like to tease him about it." She adds after a moment.

Dr. Burke laughs. "So it was a fun case then?"

"For the most part. A lot of teasing, a lot of ghost buster references, a few from Scooby Doo. I had fun." She says nodding in agreement with herself. "Not to say murder is a laughing Matter." She then adds.

"Of course not. But Castle made it not so dark for the rest of you, right?"

"Right."

"Good, You need that." He says and she nods a little. He watches as her mind seems to go elsewhere for a moment, a smirk playing on her lips. He lets her have her moment.

Kate is thinking about the teasing in the McClarin house. How Castle is such an easy mark, which she loves. Although sometimes she thinks he just lets her thinks so. She knows she can always depend on him to be silly and make her laugh and ease up when she needs it. She's not as tense anymore. Although...She has been a whole new kind of tense since he helped get her up into that hiding place. You'd think, that when someone is lifting you up by your legs they would accidentally going to cup your ass while giving you a boost. But not this time. Oh no, he defiantly copped a feel...elsewhere and she doesn't think by accident. And she hasn't been able to keep her mind off it since. It's left her all hot and bothered. Not like that doesn't happen sometimes anyway. But this time there was actual contact.

"Kate?" Dr. Burke asks her after several minutes.

"Hmm?" She covers her mouth with curled fingers and looks his way.

"What would you say, was the theme of this case?" He asks, becoming serious.

Kate's brow furrows and she thinks deeply. "You mean aside from ghosts?" She then asks.

He nods.

She looks down at the floor again in deep thought, and then immediately thinks of Matt Benton's brother. "Demons." She answers quietly, becoming shaken. All signs of her happier demeanor when they started the session, gone.

"I am getting the sense that you don't mean paranormal demons?"

She shakes her head with a far off look in her eyes.

"Inner Demons."

No response.

"Kate? Did something else happen during this case?" He asks. But she doesn't look like she'll be giving an answer anytime soon.

Kate's mind is at her mother's crime scene. where she was when it happened, What she was doing, what she was wearing, the time... She thinks of the yellow tape and the flashing lights. The same yellow tape she sees every time she goes to her own crime scene investigations. Although sometimes Castle is able to steer her away from that scene without even knowing he helped at all.

"Kate?"

"Pete Benton said that he can remember every single detail of the night Melanie was killed. Where he was. What time it was. Who he was with. What he drank. Even the name of his server that night." She stops, her voice quivering, and looks at Dr. Burke with broken eyes. "He said... when something like that happens..." She almost chokes on the lump forming painfully in her throat. "It's _burned _in your brain. Every detail of the night you heard...He said he couldn't forget it even if he tried." She looks down at her hands, now clutched tightly together in her lap, and slumps her shoulders. A tear slips from her eye and forges a path down her cheek.

Dr. Burke folds his hands in front of him and watches her as she tries to gain control of herself. Her body has tense considerably, and she's shaking with the effort to beat down the sobs that desperately want to break free.

"It's things like that, that make me feel like _this_ is not going to work." She's shaking her head.

"Therapy?"

She barely nods and wraps her arms around her knees.

"Kate, it's not uncommon to hit a rough patch. To have set backs. It's how you get through them that makes all the difference."

A sob escapes and she buries her face in her knees and lets the tears fall. She feels like a failure. Feels as though she's been doing great, heading in the right direction to a better self, a more ready Kate Beckett. But this one thing just had to show itself. She realizes that there will always be reminders. But it still gets to her in the worst possible way.

"This is not a fail." He says, as if reading her mind. "This is just something we will have to work through, like everything else."

She sniffles, lifting her head to rest her chin on her knees, and then she looks over him with a slight nod. "Okay." She says her voice building it's strength back. She wipes at her eyes and sniffles again.

"Try this... Imagine what it is your working towards."

She nods. Wanting desperately to fix herself.

"Can you see it?"

Kate closes her eyes, tightening her hold on her legs and tries to imagine. Her thoughts automatically drift to Castle. What it would be like to have all those walls come down, and to just dive in with him. She can see herself more than ready, and the look on his face when she tells him so. Soon a real smile creeps onto Kate's face. She opens her eyes and looks to Dr. Burke who has just witnessed the tip of her soon to be transformation. All she has to do, is visualize it, believe in it, and it can be hers.

"I can."

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>

** I know this was mostly a fun and silly episode. but I couldn't stop thinking about the look on Kate's face after what Pete Benton said. And we all know she went to her Therapist for that one. Just the thought that everyone has those inner demons. That there are things that will sometimes remind us. **

**And then, my friends. There is the Law of Attraction. The idea that if you can imagine it, believe in it enough, it can be yours.**

**P.S. I don't know if you have noticed... but I like to put a lot of subtle metaphors in these chapters. A bit of symbolism I guess. And there were a lot in here. I hope you guys notice.  
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	9. Belong

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COPS & ROBBERS!**

_**Belong**_

Kate barges into her therapists office the morning after the bank incident. "I could see it!" She says angrily, catching Dr. Burke off guard. He looks up from his desk alarmed. "You told me." She says through her teeth, pointing a shaking hand at him. "You told me if I imagined it, I could work through this, I could have it..." Even as she says this she knows how foolish it sounds, but she's really been doing much better.

Dr. Burke stares at her and just listens.

Her hands drop to her sides, fists clenched around the fabric of her gym pants and sweatshirt. Her hands going white and shaking so bad her whole body quivers. She's staring down at the floor and trying to catch her barrings. But the more she tries, the worse she gets. She keeps imagining how she felt when she heard the shot, and then the C4 blow up; how horrified she was that it was all over. That she would never see Castle again, that she wouldn't ever get to tell him how she truly feels.

"You said it would work!" She yells letting go of her clothes and bringing a hand up to her sweaty hair as she starts pacing in front of her chair.

Dr. Burke stands up and her eyes flash to him with a deadly glare.

"I _believed_ it could work..I really did, and you know what it got me!" She asks menacingly. "It nearly got Rick killed!" Her hand comes off her forehead and her fingers curl over her mouth.

"Kate." Dr. Burke says calmly, which only seems to piss her off more because she's about to fall over the edge. "Please sit." Kate clenches her teeth and shakes her head while looking away from him. He nods his head in complete understanding. So he sits instead, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and waits her out.

She can't. She needs to keep moving. After a while her pacing slows to a walk, and then she stops completely. Kate shakes her head several times, and a tear glistens as it slips from her eye and drips to the carpet at her feet. Her knees go weak and she falls into her chair in sobs. Kate did not get any time to herself from when she got the call, to when they got everyone out of that bank. And part of her was okay with that. It meant she couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel the raw emotions of her day, her fears. She couldn't let her weakness break through. But she was _absolutely_ **terrified.** From the instant she heard the bank was in the throws of a robbery, to the moment the suspect told her Castle was the first to die. She kept it together in the car on the way to the scene, fingers white, gripping the steering wheel trying not to slip into a blind panic. She had to keep a level head...but she found it extremely difficult, especially because it was Castle in there. She stayed level the entire day even though the love of her life was held hostage. The love of her life who still does not know she's in love with him.

Kate's body racks with the sobs she's held in since yesterday. She couldn't sleep last night when she got home from Castle's family dinner. She ended up working out at the gym instead of going home. She wouldn't allow herself to get like this, and she just came undone in the first few minutes of stepping into therapy. She's curled into her chair with her tired face in her knees and she can't stop. Now that the flood gates are open, she's going to let it all out until there is nothing left. She can't keep it in any longer.

"Kate." Dr. Burke tries again. Kate hiccups and looks up, still crying with the same intensity. "Can you tell me what happened?" He asks gently even though he's already heard about it. Kate needs to get it off her chest. He also knows that her anger is misplaced. It's her way of coping.

Kate opens her mouth, trying to take in a deep breath but a sob catches in her throat and her head falls to back in frustration. "I...I..." She frowns deeply. "I gg Ot a call from C cas le th, y yester day morning." She manages to get out, sniffling.

Dr. Burke pushes over a box of tissues but Kate refuses them. "Go on." He sits back slowly.

"He called to ask if I ne needed him for anything because he he was at the bank with his mother to help her get a loan and want to get out of it." Her voice becomes more steady. "We teased each other like we always do... and then he tells me that he thinks the bank is about to be ra robbed." She stops, looking at her hands. "I thought he was making it up because he was bored..."

"But he wasn't?"

Kate purses her lip, another tear falling. She shakes her head. "No he hhe waas n't." She stares far off, her eyes misting over. "When I her heard one of the suspects tell everyone to get down on the grround...I ...I didn't reeally have time to fully panic. I I needed to get all the information from Ca castle...and I just..."

"You went into cop mode." Dr. Burke says for her. She looks at him wide eyes glistening and nods. "That's understandable." He then says. "Your trained to keep a level head during situations like that, it's not surprising you acted as such." He gets up from his chair, checking the time. "I'll get us some coffee, I'll just be down the hall." He places a hand on her chair for a moment and then leaves the office.

Kate lets out a long slow breath. The sobs have stopped, which is a relief because her chest and throat are starting to hurt from the effort to stop them. But the tears are flowing freely, and she wipes at them with the back of her sleeve. She can feel the sweat from her work out clinging to her skin, and she's starting to feel cold now. Dr. Burke walks in a minute later and hands her a cup of hot coffee. She grips it in both hands and breathes in the smell. It makes her think of Castle...and the feeling of how she was so very close to losing him yesterday jumps out at her again. She stares into the cup unblinking.

"So the bank is being robbed, and your on the line with him?" He asks, wanting to walk her through it at her own pace.

She nods. "Yes he was telling me everything they were doing, up until he realized there were 4 of them instead of 3, I am assuming...It was Trapper John, and he had pulled a gun on him..." She trails off.

"Trapper john?" He inclines his head.

"Yes. There were three men, Dr. Huxtable, Trapper John and Dr. Doogie Howser. The woman was Dr. Quinn medicine woman. They were dressed in scrubs and wore surgical masks. Trapper john was running the show."

Dr. Burke nods.

"I ended up being the negotiator because he took the phone from Castle and made his demands, I guess he liked my..what did he say? Oh my "bedroom voice."

"That must have made you feel a little better?" He asks.

She frowns. "I didn't want to screw it up."

"Of course not. So what were Trapper John's demands?"

Kate sinks lower into the chair and drinks from her cup. "For one he knew our game plan, he wasn't an idiot...He told me if I lie to him, He'd kill the hostages, if I jerk him around..." She gives him a look and he gets it. "If we stormed the bank...he'd kill Hostages...and then..." She looks down, running a finger over the rim of her cup. "He told me he'd start 'with my boyfriend'" Her heart rate quickens at the threat.

"Castle?"

She bites her lip and nods. "He wanted a bus with tinted windows...something about the bus taking him, his partners and all the hostages to the airport, where he would pick a foreign country of his choosing...if we did that, then he would let the pregnant bank teller inside go."

"What about the other Hostages?"

"He said he'd let them go when he landed. Then he gave us three hours."

"That's a tall order."

"Yes but they were not planning on letting those suspects have it."

"I didn't think so."

Kate vaguely shakes her head, putting her lips to her cup but not drinking. "After the call." She says to the cup. "One of our guys catches something on the cameras."

"What was it?"

Kate actually smirks at this. "Castle..." She smiles into her lid, eyes shining. "He sent me a message via Morse Code. With his mother's bracelet."

"That's smart." Dr. Burke smiles.

"Castle is very clever..." She sounds so proud and in awe. "The message was Safe Deposit Box 120...which turned out to belong to an old couple who would access it monthly...but when I sent Ryan and Esposito to find them...They found the old woman murdered in her apartment. Dead a week. Her husband died 4 years ago. She didn't have any existing family left aside from a son in law. Her daughter and grandson were thought to have been killed in a boat accident."

"Thought? You mean they are still alive?"

"Yes...but while my team were digging up more on the family... one of the hostages had a grand mal seizure. Trapper John calls me." Kate lowers her cup. "He wanted me to send in one paramedic to go in and get him...in exchange for his bus outside in twenty minutes." She sighs. "It wasn't enough time. But he wasn't hearing it. He said it had to be out there in 20 minutes or he was going to start killing the hostages."

"And you were afraid for Castle."

"Terrified." She admits... "But the bus was 35 minutes out, and they wanted to storm the bank...I had to think quickly...I said we could use the sick hostage to our advantage."

"Oh?"

"Instead of sending in a paramedic, Send in a cop with tactical training. That way we could get Intel for when swat goes in to breach the bank." Her voice is stronger now.

"Who was the cop?"

"I was."

He smiles at this.

"I dressed as a paramedic, and they let me in with a gurney. That's when I saw Castle." Her breath hitches in her throat. Remembering how scared yet relieved she was to see him. She swallows. "They searched me. Castle was with the sick hostage, when he saw me... he discreetly found something to write on, and when we got close enough... I asked Castle how the Hostage was doing. I told the Hostage, named Sal, that everything was going to be okay, and that there were people out there that cared about him..."

"But you were talking to Castle."

She nods. "I put my hand on Castle's, who's hand was on Sal's..." She closes her eyes, remembering the feeling of his hand gripped with hers. "I looked directly at Castle when I said this." She looks Dr. Burke in the eye, her eyes still swimming with tears. "And then Dr. Huxtable ordered Castle to help me get Sal onto the gurney...I had to let go..." She wipes at her eyes. "I strapped Sal in... Castle slipped me the paper..." A tear slips passed her fingers and she shakes a little. "I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to walk out of that bank without him..." She rests her face on her knees.

"I can't." He admits softly. "What did Castle write down for you?" He then asks after a respectable pause.

"C4" She says darkly. "I thought I was going to lose it. But Alexis was out there...and I needed to be strong for her..." Kate wipes a hand over her face and hair, leaving her fingers to tighten at her scalp. It's like she's there again. "Now we were running out of time, the Bus was still 20 minutes out and we only had 5 minutes to get it to him...He was going to start killing Hostages."

"What did you do." he asks evenly.

"I needed to buy more time...so I called Trapper John." Kate closes her eyes again, as if to compose herself for her next statement. It's still so fresh in her mind, the sound, and the terror in her own heart. "He told me that the hostages would be dead in 2 minutes. I told him no one needed to die, that the bus was coming and that it was just stuck in Traffic." She opens her eyes and looks passed Dr. Burke at nothing, as if seeing the inside of the van she was in, feeling her own heart beat against her chest as she tried to keep calm. Even then she was losing that mind set. "He wasn't having it. He said he had rules and he was living up to his... I told him, less calmly then I would have liked, that I was going to live up to mine..and then he said... That he told me not to jerk him around and asked me if he needed to prove how serious he was."

"Was he?"

"At the time...he made me think he was..."

"What did he do."

Kate looks at him, " I told him as calmly as possible...that he just needed to calm down and talk about it..." She looks away. "He told me he was done talking...and then I heard a shot." She stiffens in her chair and then lets out a breath. "It was a warning shot." She says slowly..."But I thought he shot Castle..." Her hand goes over her mouth. "But he said the next one was for the kill..." Another tear slips. "He put the gun to Rick's throat...and told me he was going to paint a Jackson Pollock with his insides." She grits her teeth.

"What did you do?"

"My inner homicide came out...I didn't hesitate...I said "Listen to me Jackass,...I couldn't stay calm anymore..I told him I couldn't control traffic so he was going to have to give me more time." Her voice drips the same way it did yesterday while on the phone with him. "He said I only had one minute. I said No, I had twenty, asked if he heard me. And then I said..." She stares right at the Doctor across from her and quotes her self word for word. "If you pull that trigger, I will personally walk through those doors and put a bullet in your skull."

He blinks.

"He was silent, and then he says, 'okay Kate. You have 20 minutes." As if he was never going to do it in the first place.

"That's odd."

"That's what I thought." She says. "He didn't ask for anything in return. He just gave me the 20 minutes no fuss. If he wanted to maintain control, he would have asked for something."

"It was too easy."

"Exactly..something else was going on. For one thing, why would he bring C4 to a bank robbery? What did the old woman's murder have to do with any of it?"

"I take it you found all this out."

"Yes. I called Esposito and asked him if he found anything else out about Agnes, the old woman. But nothing stuck out. But someone was obviously pretending to be her dead husband to get to her safe deposit box every month. The only thing we had was a former son in law. But they couldn't reach him. That's when the explosion went off." Her eyes blur for a moment. "I was beyond terrified...I ran outside and saw a cloud of debris coming out of the front of the Bank. I froze."

"Castle's okay though, isn't he? And his Mother?" Dr. Burke asks after watching her for several long moments. She doesn't look at him right away.

She looks up. "Yes." She croaks out. She wipes at her nose. "He's perfect." She sort of smiles taking a large gulp of her coffee.

"Good." He says drinking from his own cup.

"I ran in there with Swat...calling for Castle. I found him and his mother, and all the other Hostages unharmed in the room with all the safe deposit boxes. They had zip ties keeping their hands together, But they were all all right." She sighs in relief. "I went straight for Rick, I couldn't stop smiling... I wanted to cry and hug him all at once...I was so beyond happy to see that he was safe. And he had this huge smile on his face and was telling the others "I told you."

"He knew you'd get them out."

"He did..."

"_Tell me you need me."_

Turns out...he needed her, and she was there for him like she always is, and like she always will be.

"I knelt down in front of him...I cut his zip tie and reached out to him, asking him how he was. We just..sort of stared into each other..." She says, her voice lowering, deep. She smiling. "And then Martha's voice broke through. She says "He's not the only one here you know."

Dr. Burke chuckles.

"I helped her out of her ties and we got them all out. Everyone was reunited with their families. Castle was with Alexis again..."

"What about the Robbers?"

"They were killed by the blast." She says. She fills him in on Sal, who wasn't really Sal, but Agnes former son in law, who was abusive to her daughter. It was so bad that her daughter had to fake her and her sons own death to get away from him. But he found out.

"So he found them."

"Yes...but we got him. And they are okay."

"And what about you Kate?" He asks her.

By now she's stopped crying, the tears drying on her face making her skin feel stiff. Her coffee sits cold in her less shaky hands. She looks at the lid, and then back up at him. "I'm okay...I haven't been...but I am now."

"You held this in, it's better to let it out." He says.

"I realize that." She agrees feeling sorry for blaming him earlier.

Dr. Burke checks the time his eyebrow raising when he realizes that she's been sitting here for almost 2 hours. "And what happened after this whole ordeal?"

"First. Castle had to pat himself on the back...which was adorable." She laughs quietly. "He said, he solved this case even as a hostage."

"Of course he did." He lets out a soft chortle.

Kate laughs again biting her lip and shaking her head. "He said I had the perfect Partner."

"And do you?"

"Yes, except he doesn't like to do paper work." She smirks.

He nods with a smile. "Ah, and then what?"

"I invited Castle to the Old Haunt for drinks, but he had a better idea." She smiles almost rolling her eyes.

"Oh?"

"A family dinner." She says, knowing that there is definitely meaning in it. "Martha gave me...such a hug...I felt...I felt like I belonged."

* * *

><p><strong>This was long. I wanted to do that very awesome intense episode justice. And seeing how I left the other Chapter I thought Kate would be frustrated at the things Dr. Burke told her she was capable of...have her believe in it so much that when it went sideways she wanted to blame him for it. But was really upset with herself. Or more like she was being lied to.<strong>

**(sometimes...when I feel like I can get something by being positive, and it goes haywire, I think it's my fault or something. The whole Idea that if your positive enough, the universe will be there for you. If you've done this. You know what I mean. It's called _The Secret_)**

**Also. We all know that Kate held all that in the entire episode and probably then some. She really didn't have time for herself. She went from the bank to solving the case to then dinner at Castle's loft. Which...btw, was cute but didn't end the way I would have liked, but nonetheless, AMAZING!**

**I believe this episode has shown her that she's in Castle's family. Also that...how to explain? Well...Something can happen to Castle whether he is with her on cases or not...and I think maybe this will help her...She can stop thinking she's always putting him at risk. You know? I could explain this better but I have been writing this chapter on and off all day.**

**Curious to see about next episode, the ramifications of the stares and longing looks these two gave each other this episode (She wont want him out of her sight)..PLUS! Next Monday is My Birthday!**

**Reviews are my favorite and would be especially appreciated for this particular chapter. THANKS!**


	10. My Safe Word Is Castle

_**Spoilers for cops& Robbers, **_**and****_ Heartbreak Hotel _AND the promo for_ Kill Shot. _I guess.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>My safe word is Castle<strong>_

"So you had to stay behind while the boys went off to Atlantic city?" Dr. Burke asks Kate who nods in her chair. "How did that go?"

Kate is silent for a few seconds to busy nibbling her bottom lip. "Harder than I thought it would be...I mean, I went three whole months without Rick...but this time was different."

"How so?" Even though he knows.

She yawns into the back of her hand. "First of all I have never not had him there for a case...secondly...things are just different." She says not looking at him.

"Do you think it's because of what he said?" Dr. Burke presses.

Kate sighs. "yes...but also everything else.

He raises an eyebrow.

Her eyes focus on her knees that are bent into her chest. " I almost told him...maybe even before he thought of telling me..."

"Tell him what?"

"How much I...Love him..." She whispers. She's never said it out loud before. Not to herself and not in therapy. "we were in the freezer...and I thought...what if this is it? What if we both die in here...he'll never know..."

"And he still doesn't" Dr. Burke points out.

She shakes her head. "I passed out before I finished my sentence...and he never asked me...the only other time he brought it up was during that fight before I was shot...and we still didn't talk about it...but...with all that we have been through...and the recent Bank..." She pauses closing her eyes. "I'm afraid to talk about it..." She looks up. "And we didn't even talk about it over dinner. He made a joke about how I saved his life 8 times, but hes saved mine more.."

"How many time has he saved yours?"

"He says 9." She replies with a smile and an eye roll but then her face becomes serious.

"I am sensing there is another time."

She nods. "There is a 10th...maybe even a few more he has no idea about.

"What are they?"

Kate situates herself more comfortably in her chair. "The first...was before we met. His Books." She pauses finding herself feeling nostalgic.

"What did his books do for you?"

"They kept me from drowning." She says softly. "There was something about his words, his stories that kept me grounded. Maybe it's the fact that justice always won out in the end. The hero always got his answers. They kept me hanging onto the hope that I to, would someday find answers."

Dr. Burke considers her for a moment. "Have you ever thought of telling Castle this?"

She plays with the fabric of her dress pants. " Someday." She answers truthfully. She knows she'll tell him. Perhaps after she confesses to him that she remembers his declaration of love...that she loves him too, and perhaps always has deep down. That he's her safe word. That his is the only name she thinks of when she's in need. Maybe that would soften the blow of having lied to him all this time.

"And the other times?" Dr. Burke asks seeing she's gone somewhere else for a minute.

"After we met. Certainly not at first. But after a while...having him around made my life seem less dim, and lonely. He made me see that there is plenty of things to enjoy in life...and I wasn't having any fun until he came into my life." She quotes her dear captain. "He was good for me, has been good for me."

"This is very good Kate." He praises.

She can't hep the smile that creeps onto her face. She bites her lip. Proud of herself...

"It's great that you have come to realize all this on your own." He then adds.

She only nods, biting down harder on her lip because although she's proud of her revelation...she also still has doubts. Doubts about her own strength. The depth of how much she really needs Castle in her life. She almost went the whole day without him...but she couldn't stop thinking about him, and talking about him to Gates, trying to defend him because she's terrified that one of these days Gates will kick him out for good. She has a weakness. Two really. One is the rabbit hole, and the second is Castle. And without the latter, she falls into the other. She knows that this unfinished business of hers is still in the way. But she finds she needs him there at all times. She only feels safe with herself when he is around...and without him...she might just slip away again.

There is still that thing deep inside of her that consumes her. That need for answers, it's ravenous and it makes her crazy and forgetful of all else. She's afraid of that Kate. Because this one is better, the one she is slowly becoming is healthier and just a little bit happier...but that other side of her...the broken down Kate, lurks just near the surface. The one who's still suffering from PTSD, who's fixing herself but is not all mended...she's still vulnerable, and it would be very easy to tip over and become the one thing she's trying to stay away from.

* * *

><p><strong>I realize this is short. But the episode didn't give me much. So I took a bit from the one before, and this one, plus the PTSD roaring its ugly head in the promo. I was hoping they'd have it resurface. She has to get worse before she gets better, it's not all just going to go away.<strong>

**Also. Caffinate-Me and I had the same idea about the 10th time he saved her, but she got it posted first. Haha.**

**Thoughts?**


	11. More than Who I am

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR "_KILL SHOT_"**

**Revised.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>More than Who I am <strong>_

She stood at the edge of a precipice bits of herself wanting to chip off the now sturdy ledge beneath her feet, and plummet into the abyss. But she holds back...Looking over the edge she sees it all. All that she has lost, all that has defined her up until this moment. Down there it looks pretty bleak, hopeless, dark. But up here, where the air is thinner and less deprecating...She thinks she could get used to a life here. A life she didn't realize she was craving until she fell off the edge and into the rabbit hole of self sabotage. She wants to feel her life breath itself back into her body. She wants to breath again, feel whole again...

Yet she's still lost... but wants to be found. Everything else..everything? She doesn't want it to matter anymore. Consume her and bring her down in it's tight grasp. She wants to break away from it's hold, put it all behind her and live on with no regrets.

But now? She's trying to feel everything as it should be, in all it's lighter, more beautiful, worth. Her eyes are finally opening to brighter and better things...only, she still feels that darkness. Hanging above her head like a halo forged with lament and a deep sorrow she's been lost in for years.

How does she get out? How does she let go?

"Kate?"

Kate looks up slowly with tear stained eyes, face void of anything concrete. And yet her mind is reeling.

"You didn't listen to me did you?" Dr. Burke asks, his voice both stern and soothing, kind eyes regarding her with a carefulness he's come to ease her with.

She doesn't even shake her head, or move, but her eyes veer off someplace out the window, at the now calm streets of New York City. Her mind is everywhere, and in one place, all at once.

"How did you handle it?" He asks. Knowing full well that she could not. Despite the fact that she declared herself fine before leaving his office the last time she was here.

She purses her lips blinking out a tear. That feeling of being ashamed at her failure to deal creeping up on her. But she remembers what Javier said. Remembers how Castle gave her space. "I couldn't even stand alone in the elevator after leaving your office." She says voice still haunted. "My hands were shaking...I panicked at just the sound of the elevator... and when I got off? The bull pen was a mess. Everyone running around, bumping into me. Phones ringing off the hooks, everything was loud. I couldn't stay focused on anything else except keeping my self in check... It all seemed like a blur." She blinks a few extra times, as if trying to clear her vision. Just talking about it her body wants to react in the same sense, but now she has better control over it.

Dr. Burke just lets her get through this.

"Javier wanted me to go with him to the shooting range we thought the sniper may have practiced...but I didn't want to go...I ..I didn't want to be around it..." She was terrified. She couldn't even bring herself to say no at the time either. The last thing she wanted to do was walk into a range with a dozen guns going off.

"That's understandable." He says clasping his hands in front of him.

"So...Castle..he must have sensed my hesitation... I could see the look in his eyes...the entire case even...but I tried to ignore it...well, he told Javi we would prep our current suspect." Kate stares out the window. Thinking how badly she wanted this guy, how she didn't even think before going right into the interrogation and rounding on that guy as if he pulled the trigger on her himself.

"I have never been more afraid of an interrogation." she says forcing herself to look at him. "I think it was because at the time I thought he was the sniper..."

"Like you were standing in the same room as your own sniper?" He asks.

She nods pursing her lips, feeling the ache in her scars." I made it personal...I couldn't help it. It's been built up inside me and I needed someone to blame so I ...I went at him...I accused him of destroying peoples lives. He was in the military...he was out there to keep this country safe and I told him maybe he should be on the other side of the barrel...and I said I think he liked it...that he enjoyed killing...Never mind that every life he took was to save one of ours..I .. I just couldn't see past it, only my own shooter..."

She looks down at her hands. And then wipes at her large sad green eyes. She can't believe she said things like that, how she almost believed everything she was saying, words spilling out of her mouth without a filter, she wished Castle had stopped her. But she also wanted to know why. _Why_ he killed, and how it _felt_.

"Afterward. I was sitting at my desk staring at the murder board...I started hearing people screaming...from the funeral, and I was getting flashes from my shooting, Castle yelling to me to get out of the way... the gun shot... I went somewhere else for a while until Rick was really standing there, snapping me out of it. He handed me a coffee... I didn't even want it." She says surprised at how lost she was she didn't even take a coffee from him...she always wanted it.

"From the look on his face, in his eyes..." Kate pauses, thinking back to how lost he looked, how worried and desperate he was..."I thought... I thought he was going to ask me if I was okay. I didn't even let him speak. I told him I was fine...which I wasn't...far from it...but I tried to push it aside at the time, act like I was fine and focus on what he was telling me. About these paper dolls we found at the crime scenes. He said they were cut from some coffee table book, of paintings." She sighs. "Javier shows up, telling us the shooting range is a bust, but then Ryan calls, he found the place the second victim was shot."

"Did you go there?" Dr. Burke asks. Kate going to the place where a sniper took out his target is a big deal. Something she probably shouldn't have done. If she goes to any scene at all, it should have been her own.

Kate nods, flicking her eyes to him briefly before focusing back out the window. Her eyes catch a glint off a building, and surprisingly she's not scared by it as much as she has been lately. "Seeing the actual place where he set up? Where he took another persons life?...I...I was so consumed..it felt personal to me...I kept thinking of the victims...how I could have been one of them..."

She trails off. Remembering the look on Castle's face as he watched her scope out the room, to that night when she drowned herself in a bottle. Her hand unconsciously goes to her injured arm.

_ In the darkness of her apartment, Kate sat on her couch. She's a mess... has been since she got home. She held it in all day, well she thought she was...for the most part. Her green eyes are wide, and moist, alert to every sound and movement. Everything rises a panic in her, and all she can do is sit and wait...She feels likes she's always waiting, waiting for the moment where the ground drops out beneath her feet. Waiting to fall into nothingness because that is certainly where she's headed...and she can't help it...this might be the day she finally loses every will power she has ever possessed. _

_ Her body shakes as she reaches to pour herself another glass of scotch from the small table she set there for this purpose only. Drown herself. She knows she shouldn't, but aside from wanting Castle here with her in the darkness, this bottle now almost empty, is all she allows herself. She now understands why her own father turned to it years ago..._

_ There is another sniper on the loose...Just like the guy who shot her. All she can think about is catching them, but the more she thinks back on it...the less she sees of the current case, instead seeing her own that still goes unsolved. The deeper she gets, the harder it is for her to decipher what's happening now, and what isn't. She's treating this shooter like her own personal vendetta._

_ It's happening again...the fear, the panic... She's gone, lost within herself, down the rabbit hole and she can't feel anything else except for the overwhelming need to run and hide. But she has no where to go in this vast city..he'll find her...he'll finish her off one day...only that day feels like it's now. Closing in on her with every ticking second...the tick tick tick of her life coming ever so close to expiring...and she can't escape this feeling, it's become so real. She's both aware and unaware of how deep she is, but she can't stop it, she's not sure she can and that failure only seems to make it that much worse._

_ She's spinning out of control. If the now empty bottle of scotch, her body enveloped in a cold sweat and heart palpitations are any indication, she's just on the brink of a full blown anxiety attack. Her body shakes with fear. Images from her own shooting flicker menacingly across her mind in a montage of nightmares, coupled with the utter terror she felt when she found out about this case. She barely held herself together in front of everyone. She could see how closely Castle watched her, it both annoyed and warmed her at the same time. But that look of love was not enough...Now, this raw emotion, this terror she has never felt in her entire life is swallowing her whole. She hasn't felt anything quite like this before. It's been lying dormant since the day her mother had stopped living on this earth with her. Only this time it's different. Somehow this is all together new and horrifying because Kate is not herself at all. She's this broken version of the woman she's tried so hard not to be, and now **that** Kate is loose and roaming about her apartment like a caged animal, an animal who knows no other way than to lie down in defeat. To succumb to the numbness and fright all at once. _

_ She has no fight left in her..._

_ She pours the last drop into her glass, barely filling the bottom and swallows it without a second thought. The sound of a gun firing in her own mind sends her into a blind panic, She yells out, tumbling to the floor and knocking the table over in the process. Her glass shatters, skittering across the floor dangerously. Sounds of people screaming and running away from the scene she was shot filter in and out. She gets up from the floor, shutting all the shades thinking it will keep all the menacing thoughts out, but they keep coming. She dives for her gun, scraping her arm across the glass and presses herself against the far wall on high alert. But no one is there. The danger is only in her mind and she can't distance herself from it._

She didn't sleep at all that night. She got up from the floor the next morning before the sun got a chance to peek through her closed shades. Her body was shaking so bad she had a hard time taking a shower and bandaging up her cuts before heading back into work. Kate recounts this breakdown in a nutshell to Dr. Burke, who nods his head in a way that tells her, he knew something like this would happen, and he reads between the vague lines she feeds him. But it's not all a lie. She gives into the fact that she had a breakdown, and now she is no longer ashamed of it.

"Castle found the link to the paper dolls." Kate then says. Completely stepping away from the topic of her breakdown. She can't help it, it's a reflex.

"He did?" Dr. Burke goes with it. He knows that at some point Kate will veer back to her PTSD. This is just her process.

"Yes. He figured out that the paper dolls were cut from paintings, and each painting pointed out a location. While he was explaining this...all the phones started ringing. All of them." She says the last part haunted.

"Another shooting?" He asks.

She nods. "The scene was a disaster...people running everywhere, sirens. I could only think about looking for the sniper. And then Castle calls to me. The victim is alive..." She starts, voice quivering, she closes her eyes thinking back to the look of terror in the woman's eyes. "Why me..What did I do? She asked...I...I couldn't take it...and then she grabbed onto my arm...I could feel all her pain and I had to get out of there..."

"Where did you go?"

"I ran..I ignored Castle calling to me and I ran up the stairwell and into a deserted hallway...I couldn't hold it in anymore..I just couldn't." She remembers everything bubbling up inside of her and just pouring out as she ripped everything off of her that had to do with her job, her life. She didn't want to be it anymore at the moment, she just wanted to get away. With her jacket and badge lying on the ground at her feet, Kate sobbed. She couldn't hold it in anymore. "I thought I was okay after that..." She then says just above a whisper, she finally looks at Dr. Burke.

"But you weren't"

"No." She says looking down again. "I was...numb after that...but far from fine..." She admits. "I don't even know how I got back to the precinct. I guess I drove back in a blur...found myself staring out the open elevator...Javi came to me when I got back from the scene...wanted to show me something..." She then says.

"What was it?"

"The rifle...that shot me." Kate finds her hands starting to shake a little, so she clasps them tightly together in her lap. She may be dealing with what happened to her a bit better than before, but the wounds are still fresh.

"How did that make you feel?"

"I thought he was out of line..." She says a little stronger. "He wanted me to look at it...I backed away asking him what the hell he was doing..."She was angry at him at the time, but know she understands why he had to force her to stare down her demons.

"What was he doing, Kate?" Dr. Burke asks, knowing full well what her friend was up too. A good call...the right call.

"He was tryign to help me... He said he's been where I am...That he knows what I am going through...I said.. I said I was _fine._ But he didn't believe me..He said I wasn't fine, that I was just acting like I was...He holds the gun up..and said it was just a tool...it's a hunk of steel. It has no magical powers and the person that fired it is not some all-powerful God. He's just a guy… with a gun. Just like the guy we were hunting and that he was like every other bad guy – that he's damaged goods..." She's staring at her hands. "Just like me." She says through a painful lump in her throat.

"That's okay Kate." Dr. Burke says. "Its how you choose to carry it that matters."

"That's what Javi told me...he said I think it's a weakness." She closes her eyes. She doesn't want to feel weak anymore, consumed by everything that has happened to her. "But I need to make it a strength." Another tear slips from her eye. "He said it's apart of me... and then offered me the gun and said 'so use it."

She looks at Dr. Burke. "I didn't want to look at it... but I took it from him anyway...and then nodded for him to leave. I was left standing with the weapon that nearly took my life..." She remembers how it felt to hold it.

Cold steel against her quivering skin. How she sobbed when he left. She gave in completely then, sinking to the floor with this evil weapon in her lap, clutching onto it as if the very thing that took her life from her, could put it all back. She stared down at it in hatred, tears streaming down her face, dripping onto the cold steel as it shook in her hands, as deep mournful cries came from deep inside her. She felt the power it held over her, making her scars seer in a phantom pain. The memories of that day assaulting her mind all at once. But she sat there and took it. Sat there until the gun in her hand was just another weapon. Just "a hunk of steel" She looked down at it for what it was: just a tool with no magical powers.

Dr. Burke just nods when she finishes telling him this. "And after?" He then asks after a respectable silence.

"I brought it to one of the places our current sniper shot from...I..I wanted to understand him. I wanted to know how it _felt_ to look through that scope, see what he sees when he looks through it and take another person's life...I.I just wanted to understand how someone could do something so horrible. What goes through their mind when they end someone's life? Destroy them, like I am destroyed...Do you think they _know_ about the pain that they cause? About the families they leave behind?" She asks him, her face raw and her eyes wide.

Dr. Burke thinks about his answer for a long moment. Actually not sure what he can tell her, if she'll even accept it. "I can't really give you a straight answer for that, Kate..." He says truthfully.

She nods gravely, biting down on her lip. She moves on with the knowledge that she might never know why. "As I looked through the scope at one of the crime scenes..." She stops...because at that moment in that building, holding that gun with a new found eye, she saw herself on the other end of that scope. Just for a moment...She shakes this off and continues. "I found I wanted to know why the sniper in the case shot from there and not from the roof...it would have given him a better shot. So I went to the roof, and tried to climb the latter, but I couldn't..."

"Your scar?"

"Mm Hmm. And then it came to me. The sniper was injured. He couldn't climb the latter to get a better vantage point, so he went for the next best thing. While I was doing that, The rest of them were at a coffee shop where they thought the sniper chose his victims. They found out how he chose them."

"How did he choose them?"

"By their successes. The sniper was profiled as a paranoid loner. He felt alienated and victimized by the world. He couldn't stand to hear how well everyone else was doing, how their dreams were coming true. While his were not. It made him angry. So he would pick one of them out. And make them pay. Of course that information didn't bring us closer to finding him, until I found them at the coffee shop and filled them in on my findings. Castle asks the manger of the coffee shop if any of his customers had a limp or a leg injury. The manger tells us there was a homeless guy who goes in there who has a prosthetic leg. He gives us a description and we went back to the precinct to run it through our database."

"You found him."

"Yes. Lee Travis. He was in the marines for a year until he lost his right leg in a hit and run motorcycle accident. He went into a deep depression where he turned his anger against the world." Kate explains where he took a job in a museum of art, explaining the paper dolls and where the idea came for them. "We tracked his sister down..she didn't seem surprised at what her brother has been up too...She said she wanted to help him. But it was hard because he wouldn't accept her help..." Kate looks away, realizing again that he's a lot like her.

She let herself carry everything on her shoulders, not letting anyone else help her. She's always been like this, She used to think counting on others was a weakness... and she never thought she could trust anyone else...except maybe Castle, but even with this case, her PTSD? She was blind to all he could have done for her..and for that she's guilty.

Dr. Burke gives her a nod, understanding where her thoughts had just gone.

"While Castle and I were talking to her..I get a call from uniforms. They found the third building. On the way out the door his sister says she knows that her brother has done terrible things...but to not hurt him..." She shakes her head, trying to shake the feeling of failing her and continues on. "Castle and I go the the scene."

"Did you find another doll?"

"A dozen strung together..." She says. "They were cut from a painting called "The lions in the meadow.' From what we learned from the names of the other paintings in relation to the places he took position...we figured he'd be aiming for people in Central Park." She stops talking. Silence filling the office while she thinks back to the moment Gates told them to scope out the park. How she asked Castle if he was going. "Through all of this..." She starts, blinking a few times and looking up at Dr. Burke. "Castle didn't push me...when I asked him if he was coming with me to the park..he declined..he said "You got this." She smiles a ghost of a smile and then looks out the window again.

"Seems like he was there for you the whole time." Dr. Burke points out.

"He was..." She bites at her lip and stays quiet a moment or two before continuing her talk about the case. "Ryan and Castle find out that there is a track team celebrating a win. A championship which was to be held in Central park..There team is called "The lions".

"Your victims."

"Yes. And while they were trying to get a hold of the bus to stop it. Myself and a team searched the two buildings with the best vantage point to the park. I am the one who found him...I busted through the door, but he knew I was coming. He knocked me down and kicked my gun away, drawing his own on me."

"What happened?"

"I looked into the face of the sniper...and saw a Damaged man..." She swallows wanting to compare him to herself again, but this time she doesn't. Closing her eyes briefly she opens them again, eyes a bit more clear.. "I told him to put the gun down...he said he had a job to do... but I said he shoots people in cold blood, it wasn't his job. He said: 'those people deserved what they got, that god gave to them, and took from him, his leg, his life, and then he wanted to know how that was fair. How it was right. I..I said, that those people were no different then him. He said I was just saying that because I was one of _them._ I asked him if I thought my life was a picnic...And then I showed him my scar...the one where the bullet pierced my skin." Her eyes close again, voice wavering, handing going up to her scar.

"I said..I know what it feels like to be in those cross-hairs... I know what's like to feel a bullet burn through my chest. I know what it's like to feel my life leave my body." A tear rolls down her cheek. "I said, He thought he did too and that's why he kept leaving those paper dolls because he was looking for somebody to help him find another way...He said there was no other way...not anymore, I tried to convince him...I said there was always another way..." There is..she knows this now.

"I wanted to help him find a better voice for his pain...But he wasn't hearing me, he wanted me to turn around...but I told him, if he was going to shoot me, he was going to have to look me in the eyes. That I was not his enemy, that I couldn't be because him and I had too much in common...I thought I had him...but he was too far gone...He said he was sorry, he had a job to do and aimed at me again...And then he was dead..."

"What happened?"

"Javier was stationed on the roof of the building across the street...he took him out.." She says looking away again as yet another tear is shed, for reasons she is unsure of. It was terrifying seeing herself in the eyes of a man who killed people in cold blood. But she knew in her heart that she could never be like him. But she could understand why he thought he had to do it. He was lost, like her, but he had no other voice for his pain...and she does...

After a moment she remembers back to Castle's silent support. "When I got back, Castle was sitting in his chair by my desk." Closing her eyes she sees the wounded look in his stern face.

"Did he press you?" He asks, getting up from his chair and drawing the shades.

"No Actually.. I asked him what he was doing and he...He said he was waiting for his partner, wonder if I'd seen her. He said "Pretty girl, thinks she can leap tall buildings in a single bound, carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, yet still manages to laugh at some of his jokes."

He chuckles a softly. "What did you say?"

"I said she sounded like a handful. He said 'tell me about it" Kate smiles a little. "And then he says, if I did see her, would I tell her she owes him about a hundred coffees. And then he got up to leave...I felt horrible...I hurt him...because I shut him out... so I thanked him. He asked for what...I just said for not pushing me...for giving me the space to get through this...He gave me this look like maybe he wasn't going to accept my apology... But he said.._"Always"_

Dr. Burke smiles, giving her a nod, standing by his chair. "What does that word mean to you?" he asks. Kate has brought it up a few times.

"It...I think it means..." A pause...having a hard time saying these next few words. "I love you." She almost chokes out. "It's like this unspoken agreement between the two of us..." She says softly.

"But is it? When he brings you coffee, and says this too you, and you say it back...do you really think he knows that is what your really saying?"

Kate opens and closes her mouth. "I know it's what he's saying to me..." She looks away from him.

Dr. Burke gives her a tight lip smile and a tilt of her head, letting her know he gets it and then walks past her. Kate stares at the place he was just sitting, running her hand down the wooden manikin next to her chair. "So, how do you feel now that Lee Travis is dead?" Now touching on the subject he's been wanting to since she told him about it. Going to the source.

Kate looks at him. "I thought taking him down would resolve things but, it's still there." She finds it easy to jump from Castle to the case, because she's been thinking really hard about how the sniper's death has affected her.

"Because you haven't fully dealt with what happened to you." Maybe some, but not everything.

"No." She says. "I felt it before the shooting...I think it's always been there. Deep inside since that night." She says truthfully. Her mind flashes to the yellow tape at her mothers crime scene, the wounds still open and raw from her death.

"The night your mom was killed." He states, now back in his chair.

"Mm hmm...I've let it define me. Drive me. It's made me who I am..." She expresses as if that's all she has ever been capable of being. "But now..." She trails off.

"But now?" He presses.

Kate looks up past him. "I want to be _more_, than who I am..." She says, a lump starts to form in her throat, her eyes moistening under the pressure to hold them back. "But I don't know...if I know how to do that without letting my mom down." Her voice is more quite, raspy as the lump rises. She's still not looking at him.

"She's dead Kate." He says. "You can't let her down." A tear escapes her eye and she wipes it away as he continues: "The only person you can let down is yourself."

She wipes at both eyes looking down at her lap. She's come to realize this, over time, and more so with this case and her unresolved PTSD. But hearing it from someone else? Feels more like another shot to the chest, only this time the aim was accurate, straight to the heart.

"Her death is apart of you," She looks at him. Knowing that her mothers death is everything Kate is, everything she has allowed herself to become.

"And your going to have to make peace with that just like your going to have to make peace with the scars from your shooting. But it doesn't have to limit you."

She frowns. Not knowing how to live any other way. She's always been about the limits. "How am I supposed to let go?" She tilts her head to one side, ready for his answer. Ready for anything he has to say to her because she's tired of hiding. Tired of letting her life breeze by her.

"I can help you. But the question is..are you ready?"

Kate thinks about what this means to her. To be ready. Being with Castle for one thing, and letting go, being free from her inner demons: a chance at a better life, a happier life... "Yea." She finally says her face softer now. "I think I am."

Kate steps away from the edge of the precipice, turning around to find a shimmering pool before her. A reflection ripples in the slightly disturbed water. Liquid that quivers as she stands unsure near the waters edge; Showing her a damaged woman. Her eyes close briefly...uncertain about her choices, the step to a better self. But as she opens her green eyes to the new depths, the small waves settle, she sees someone she would like to be. Someone _more_ than who she's been. Someone who is on her way to being whole again, one who is ready. And now? Looking at the scars forever marked on her body, she doesn't see their ugliness anymore. She doesn't see the shame in them, or feel as frightened by the demons they arise.

As a steady hand rests on the scar between her breasts, Kate breathes in a deep breath, breathing her life back into her body, and out the pain at what she thought she lost, in a less shaky exhale. With one hand on her heart the scar that nearly took her life, and the other long one on her side that saved her... Kate turns her body so she can see the two reminders of her existence in the reflection of the now crystal clear water. She breathes in again, feeling her heart beating normally in her chest, the air flowing in and out of her lungs past her lips that now curve into a smile. Dropping her hands to her sides. Kate squares her shoulders and looks determinedly into the depths, her smile widens and a single happy tear rolls down her cheek. She nods her head once at her own reflection. With a soft hum of readiness, Kate dives in.

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><p><strong>I hope I made it better. <em>REVIEW! Please...<em>**

**P.S. Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the lines I borrowed from **_**K**__**ill Shot**__"_


	12. Finding the Rhythm

**Major spoilers for "Cuffed"**

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><p><em><strong>Finding the Rhythm<strong>_

Kate woke up the morning after another brush with death disappointed. She half expected to see Castle sleeping beside her...like in every dream she has, and the day before when it was actually happening...granted not the way she would have liked or fantasized it, but she still relished in that moment...only now...reality strikes, and she's sitting in Dr. Burke's office reliving the aftermath. And even though it was just some strange circumstance...Kate reads into every single detail of those precious hours handcuffed to the love of her life.

First thing that sticks in her mind, is how it felt to open her eyes to him sound asleep. Peacefully, adorably... that smile that spread across her face, the warm, love and happiness that filled her very soul... She loves the way he looks when he's asleep, this being the second time she's watched him... She stared at his profile, mapping the smooth lines of his face that make him so handsome and charming. She just listened to him breathe...

Kate closes her eyes briefly, her hand tingling from the memory of how real it felt. His warm body close to hers, his chest under her hand, feeling his heart beat, watching him breathe in and out. Oh that mouth...the mouth she can't help but stare at every now and then..the mouth she so badly wants to kiss and now more than ever. She's finding it harder and harder not to give into those impulses.

She realizes how easy it was (is) to just imagine doing it every single day..how badly she wanted it. She wants it..more than anything, and she is so close, so very close to having it, perhaps even more now...because being with him like that..in such an easy, yet intimate setting? It let her see what her life could be like, and she thinks now is better than never...

Not to mention how he reacted when she woke him up.

As if he was dreaming of her as well. In fact she knows this to be true. How he opened his eyes and turned to her, like she dreams he would every morning, and speak to her in his sleepy bedroom voice with a familiarity she craves, the voice that sends chills of pleasure through her body. In that moment she didn't have to pretend, he was acting it out with her in some unspoken agreement. A connection that runs so deep, that not even being handcuffed together arguing could ruin it.

Once he was finally awake, she had felt an inkling of loss, the pretending was over and they had to figure out how they got in that room. So of course, they brain stormed, and argued, because the stress of being handcuffed, sleepy, drugged and kidnapped drove them slightly apart for a little while. But if that smooth caress of her back was any indication that they would indeed be alright, Kate still knows that when the two of them are faced with danger, they'll come out of it together.

But it doesn't mean she wasn't scared. However detached she made herself.

"Your cop instincts kicked in." Dr. Burke observes after Kate admits that she was frightened.

"Yes, but not the whole time." She says.

Sure she was driven with trying to escape... okay backing back up...

Everything runs through her mind in a rapid vivid dream. She can't focus on just a single event, so as she speaks to Dr. Burke, it almost comes out choppy, and she has to stop herself and get back on track.

When she first woke up. The two of them trying to remember how they got there...when Castle brought up the seedy hotel, and how she invited him there...Oh god...even thinking of it now scares her...She was so terrified that something had happened between them and she had no memory of it. If anything was going to happen like that between them, she'd want to remember...for sure. So when she realized that they were there because of a dead body the sheer relief coursed through her.

Mmm the way his hands felt on her back. How completely aware she was when she asked him to lift her shirt, his comment which was not all that surprising but still affected her... She had to shrug it off or else she'd get too caught up...Her skin flushes, warms at the thought and a flutter coupled with a smile she cannot help creeps onto her face. What she would give to feel that again...so she did everything in her power to keep those thoughts alive, even asking him to hold her hand. Her own intentions were clearly not pure, despite what she explained to him. Sure it would help so their wrists were not cut by the cuffs, but she so desperately wanted to feel him again, skin on skin, his warm hand reassuring her, because on the inside she was scared.

"So how was being cuffed to Rick?" Dr. Burke asks the obvious question.

Kate actually laughs. "It was..." _titillating? _" awkward and clumsy at first...A great test of our patience...and relationship."

He nods at her proudly for her realization. "So you guys fought, at first?" He guesses correctly.

"Yeah." She nods. But even that was great. Normally she'd be completely annoyed with him, but she actually found it reassuring. It wasn't a full out fight, and she's always enjoyed their bickering. It's their norm.

Of course he had to say something stupid, which was aggravating, and cute at the same time, but then they got right into theorizing...She smiles again. She just loves their easy back and forth and finishing each others sentences, sometimes saying things at the same exact time.

"He asked me why I always had to lead." She says amused now.

"Oh?" He leans forward,

"Yes... I asked him why he always had to step on my toes."

And then the fight about why she always had to be first. First into the elevator first through the door. With the obvious reason was that she's a cop, with the gun. She needs to go through the door first..but she did realize that she doesn't always need to be the cop, and let Castle lead the way...She laughs.

"I gave him opportunity to lead."

"And."

"He asked me what I wanted to do."

Dr. Burk laughs serenely. "You two remind me of a canoe." He remarks.

"I'm sorry." She frowns. "A what?"

He smiles. "A canoe, and object that can symbolize power, direction." He pauses and looks at her. Has her full attention. "like a marriage, if the -."

"Uh..Castle and I are not married." She points out.

"Yes, but you act like it." He says amused.

She opens and closes her mouth letting out a soft sound of perhaps shock.

He chuckles. "Okay." He clasps his hands together in his lap. "If the canoe goes straight, it shows that you two can compromise, work together, find a rhythm...Move forward in the same direction."

She nods, eyes crease as she thinks deeply about this. How the whole event panned out.

"But." He raises a finger hands still clasped. "If the canoe is going around in circles, so is your relationship."

She nods her head again, her mouth open in an "OH" shape but staying silent. They are going in circles in their relationship..have been for years and it's not a full out real relationship she wants from him either...not to mention they literally were going in circles cuffed together...it changed a little when she asked him to hold her hand, feel the closeness they should have been focusing on. The trust in each other. And then they found the freezer... She was afraid of what was in it.

"What was in it?"

"Chains and bloody knives." She says distractedly..because her mind is no longer on the dangers of what was inside, but their attempts to move it. How...close..they were to each other and how painfully aware of every touch, and breath on her from his face being so close to hers, nearly touching her ear, or her cheek, pretty much her whole body at some points.

_You better not be enjoying this Castle._...because she sure was...

"We couldn't move it...so Castle, having mastered the art of opening locks, finally got it open so we could take whatever was inside, out...So when we opened it and saw what was inside...lets just say I almost wished it was a dead body."

Removing everything from that freezer was mostly tedious, and terrifying...she was afraid of what all that was used for, and if their captors were going to come back and torture them. But she tried to push it all aside, and when the last chain was removed, Her and Castle pushed the freezer under the trap door. But of course, it wasn't tall enough, so she had to climb on Castle's back..which was...titillating, to say the least. Since the last time he gave her a boost he...well...lets just say she's still thinking about it.

"So after Castle and I finally figured out how to get me onto his shoulders. I was able to push the latch up a little, but we were still not tall enough...and then it lifts up."

"Your captors?"

"One of them, I lost my balance and Castle and I fell off the freezer and onto the mattress. And the guy shut the door on us."

"And then what?"

"Castle tried to get our cuffs off with one of the knives...but of course that didn't work because my cuffs are made of hard cased steel. So then..." She rolls her eyes. "He suggests one of us should cut of our hand."

Dr. Burke raises an eyebrow.

"Mine." She huffs. "Because mine are smaller. Anyway, then we heard something..our kidnappers. One of them was talking to another guy about selling girls...and we heard them move into another room,so we followed the sound, and I could hear breathing on the other side of the wall. When the kidnappers left the two of us thought that maybe they were human trafficking, that there was a girl behind the wall, and then I noticed that the wall was made of stucco tile."

"So you broke through it?"

"Eventually. Castle and I.." her mind drifts to how well they worked together, the feel of his support, his closeness. "We worked together and broke through the wall."

"Mm." He hums with satisfaction.

With enough broken away, she had let Castle go first, but what he met on the other side was completely unexpected.

"A Tiger?" Dr. Burke asks in astonishment.

Kate purses her lips and nods. "There really was a tiger, and she was trying to break through."

The utter terror that after all this time, after all she has been through, getting shot in the chest, going to therapy, trying to be more than who she's been, working to be ready to dive in with Castle... to then have it all come to and end because a tiger ate them? She can't say she didn't feel completely hopeless...And then Castle stood in front of her, after realizing that the freezer was to heavy to put in the way. She had never felt safer, for some reason, even though it was obvious that the tiger was going to get them. And then he had an idea. With power neither knew they possessed, they flipped the freezer and Castle got on with her just in time.

"It's a known fact that adrenaline can give you inhuman strength," Dr. Burke points out.

Kate nods. Thinking to how they grasped each others hands still trying to find a way to get out of their current brush with death. So they yelled for help...their last resort. "And then Esposito and Ryan opened the hatch."

"So you got out?"

"No... our kidnappers showed up, three of them...held them at gunpoint and Ryan and Esposito dropped the hatch."

They continued to yell and scream to their friends and the tiger was still trying to get them. She remembers feeling that plummet in her stomach when Castle nearly gave up. But she held his hand tighter. Telling him that after surviving a bullet to the heart, there was no way she was now going to become tiger kibble. And then the worst thing happened...the tiger jumped and the freezer toppled over...But by then she had a plan. Her and Castle pulled themselves up by some bars hanging from the ceiling.

"And then Ryan opens the hatch thinking the tiger ate us."

"But you made it."

"yes..yes we sure did..although there were a couple moments where Castle and I wanted to kill each other..."

"But you found your Rhythm."

Kate just smiles. Now thinking back to when they finally got back to the precinct, how Castle said if he ever had to be hitched to anyone, it would be her. Her heart fluttered at that. A few years ago she would probably be annoyed..but now? Now things like that just make her more hopeful. So she tossed him a promise as well.

"What did you say?"

"I told him that if I ever had to spend another night handcuffed to someone again.. I wouldn't mind if it was him...but next time...we'd do it without the tiger..." She looks down with a smile, not believing she just told her therapist that last part.

He just smiles in amusement. "So now what?" He asks leaning into his chair.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you to have obviously worked out that you can work well together as a couple. Now what is your next step?"

Kate opens and closes her mouth. Because thinking about it and then actually doing it is a whole different thing...

"Didn't you say Ryan is getting married in less than a month?" He coaxes.

"Yes...you mean..Castle and I?...umm..."

"Weddings are known for stirring up all sorts of emotions. They say it can even give you perceptive..let you step back and see someone else in their happiest moment, compared to where you are now...where do you want to be?"

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><p><strong>Thoughts. And I seriously mean it. REVIEW! honestly. Review this fanfiction. Because I am hardly motivated these days. I had to force myself. And I really need to know if you like this. So Leave a review! And if you have read my new fanfic <em>Castle's top Secret Christmas: Mission Esplanie... GO BACK AND REVIEW IT! It's not that hard guys. I review yours stuff.<em>**


	13. AN

**Okay guys. As you know we are now on a Hiatus from Castle until January 9th of 2012 (Cries)...that means, so is this story... Which just means I have time to write a new one to pass the time. And I have already started it. It's called _Castle's Top Secret Christmas: Mission Esplanie._ I hope you all decide to go read that one while we wait impatiently for Castle to return. **

**Thank you all for the alerts/favorites, and reveiws for this one so far :D **

**Enjoy my new story, and PLEASE REVIEW! :D **

**Love you my fellow Castle fans! Always.**


	14. It's Everything

**WE ARE BACK! MAJOR SPOILERS FOR _TILL DEATH DO US PART._**

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><p><em><strong>It's Everything<strong>_

"Where do you want to be?" She recalls what doctor Burke asked a few sessions ago.

Kate knows where she wants to be. Perhaps she always has. At least now more then ever. Why else would she be sitting here in this office week after week? Sometimes more than once. It's more than just letting her case go, her mothers case, her mistrust. It's finding her heart again. It's been lost. For so long. This gaping hole in her chest. Until Castle weaseled his way into her life, she thought she was okay with it. Was almost blissfully aware...or more like miserably unaware, or so aware she became numb to it.

Yes that would be the correct way to describe it.

She thought she could ignore it, or fill the hole with men she thought she could love, but never truly did. She thought she could ignore it by diving into work. Almost forgetting about that empty space, fogged up by bad memories and misery. And then that hole repaired itself.

Or so she thought.

It started manifesting bricks. It's walls accumulating more and more as the years wore on. She started using the resources around her to help make the bricks. Her mother's death. Her father's drinking. The injustice of the world. Her job, Royce. Castle's Books. Will. The rabbit hole. After while...she couldn't feel it anymore. Just this unbearable weight inside her chest she eventually grew to accept. She lived by her own made up excuses. She used the tragedies of her life to stop herself from truly living. She didn't know any other way. She's been suffering.

Until he came.

She's starring dreamily out the window. A grin sits permanently on Kate's face. Her cheek lays relaxed in her hand, elbow propped up on the arm rest of her chair. She's glowing, and she knows it. From the radiant smile on her face, to the tingling of her skin. She's never felt this happy before, never felt this alive. And she knows, that even though she's not yet with Castle in the most complete of ways, she made another great step towards that. Step towards him, and that full feeling of being truly alive. This is only a glimpse. And so far? She's in love with what she's feeling.

Nothing about the week leading up to Ryan's wedding could turn her mood upside down. The event itself and what the future held for her dear friends, was something that has only made her hopeful. Envious, but hopeful. She saw, as those two said their "I dos", what love is really about. What it looks like. And Kate can't help but picture herself up there one day. She said so herself, to Castle before they linked arms and walked down the isle. (she didn't miss the symbolism in that) that "Who knows, maybe the third times the charm." Did he catch her double meaning? She's not sure, she surely hopes so. But even if he didn't, it still meant enough to her to imply it.

The moments leading up to the actual ceremony were her favorite. She was nervous as hell. Walking into her friends wedding alone. But the thought of Castle having his daughter be his plus one, melted some of that tension. And when she was standing there, talking to someone from Ryan's side of the family...the sight of Castle on the other side of the room literally took her breath away. He looked so handsome in his black tux. She wondered briefly then, if he was thinking about his own weddings. Of course later he expressed his envy in Ryan. Somehow she knew that it was more about Ryan's utter devotion and love for Jenny, that Castle was more envious about, then the actual prospect of the event. Sure it was a nice ceremony. The feelings it invoked were wonderful...but Kate could tell, from the look on Castle's face, that he wished he had done it right. That his two failed marriages weighed on him because maybe he didn't go into them with the same happiness his good friends radiate.

It's what makes Kate a "one and done." Type of girl. She wants to do it right the first time, and only time. No mistakes, just a happily ever after, no end, just always.

"I see you have given my inquiry some great thought." Dr. Burke startles her from her splendor. The door shuts behind him and he looks out the window she was just gazing out.

"I have." Kate replies, unable to wipe the goofy grin of her face, as she pulls her eyes from the beautiful weather outside.

Dr. Burke hums in satisfaction as he walks by, setting a fresh cup of coffee on the table beside her. Kate looks down at her hands, which hold a now cold cup of coffee. She smiles at herself for letting her thoughts take her away like that. But she is not ashamed nor regretful. She flicks her eyes to the steamy cup to her left, and then replaces it with the cold one. Her eyes close and visions of Castle handing her a cup of coffee at her desk, and then in his loft as he makes them breakfast in the morning, flood her mind as she takes her first sip.

"So." he starts. "Where do you want to be, Kate?" Dr. Burke asks, after Kate takes another sip with her smiling lips.

She rests the rim of the cup on her lips, her teeth making a clinking sound as her smile widens. Her eyes un focus, staring off at something Dr. Burke cannot see. Instead of sitting in therapy, Kate is now in bed. The back of her eyelids all she sees. But she can feel a warmth beside her. Feel the press of his hot flesh against her stomach, his breath on her neck, and the rise and fall of his chest against her back.

She turns over in his arms, humming softly before she opens her eyes. She is met with the soft plains of his face, the small smile playing on his lips as he slumbers, and the hair napping on his forehead. She grins, letting out a sigh, and removing her hand from beneath the warm blankets to touch his brow. Her fingers dance across his forehead and into his hair to push his messy brown strands away. But they come back down stubbornly, so she moves on. Now her fingers are at the corner of his left eye, tracing the invisible wrinkles that are normally visible when he's smiling with his brilliant blue eyes. Only now they are relaxed in sleep.

Next she drags her nails gently down the side of his face to his jaw, cupping his cheek and running her thumb over his bottom lip. His mouth parts as he dreams, and a sigh escapes those lips, pushing warm air onto her flesh. Her hand tingles shooting up her arm and spreading to the rest of her body.

The image now changes. She's standing in his shirt and a pair of her pj pants at his stove. Bacon sizzling in the pan, while Castle shuffles about behind her, gathering plates and cups. At the corner of her eye, she spots him placing a steaming cup of coffee down to her right, and then suddenly, as she's pushing the spatula under a pile of bacon, his arms are around her from behind. His lips at her neck. She feels, more than hears him breath her in. His voice rumbling against her skin as he tells her she smells like cherries. She drops the spatula aside the frying pan and turns around, careful not to back into the stove. She goes up onto her tip toes, and presses her lips to his, pulling back just a little to hum against them.

_"You taste like coffee."_ She says, before turning around to finish up breakfast.

Now she's lounging on the couch in the living room. Her head on Castle's shoulder, and Alexis snuggled into her side. Father and daughter are bickering about something in the movie the little family are watching. Martha cuts the two of them off, agreeing with something Alexis said. Kate laughs, and then lifts her head when Castle asks her what she thinks. Her brow raises mischievously while looking between the two red heads and then she pats Castle on the chest, having to agree with his mother and daughter.

She bites her lip at the pout that curves his mouth down to one side more than the other, complaining halfheartedly. _"Is this how it's going to be for now on, now that your living here?"_ And then he mumbles about how the women in his life always gang up on him.

Time moves on a little in her fantasy world. To stolen kisses at the precinct. Late nights, unlocking the door to their loft as quietly as possible. Slipping out her heels so as not to make a sound and tip toeing into his office to find he is waiting up for her, typing away on his laptop. Other times She would her sneaking into bed, sliding under the warm covers. Thinking he's asleep to then have him wrap his arms around her and mumble how much he missed her.

And then there is the proposal. She can't even imagine how he would do it. But she would say yes. They would plan a small wedding, because despite his need to make everything big and extravagant, he would relent just for her. Aside from everything else...Kate does not think about thumbing through bridal magazines for the perfect dress, or the colors and themes, location or the guests they will have. None of that matters to her. All Kate Beckett cares about, is the man standing beside her. What happens next. Everything else leading up to it, is the past. It's far behind them and now they only look towards the future, together with their little family. A family only he can give her, something she hasn't had in a very long time. Not only is it enough...it's everything.

Kate lowers her cup, with a nod in a firm confirmation. "With Castle."

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><p><strong>Thoughts? Love? Hate? pleeeaaase let me know!<strong>


	15. Conflicting Emotions

**Spoilers for Dial M for Mayor, but not a lot.**

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><p><em><strong>Conflicting Emotions<strong>_

What would a life be without Richard Castle? Her life...what would Kate Beckett do if her shadow was no longer around to keep her company? Would it be the same as it was before he came along? Would it be hard, painful, lonely?

As Kate sits in her chair later that night, after the brutal case is wrapped up. She can't help but think of all these things. Well, especially since Dr. Burke just asked her. But it's not something she hasn't already let her mind wander too throughout this whole ordeal. She couldn't think of anything else. Her head hurts with all the terrifying thoughts. Scenarios of her life she rather not dwell on. And instead of being asked to think of a future and present without him. Dr. Burke asks her to remain on the idea that Castle never stepped into her life to begin with. She tries to grasp the logic in this request. But she finds her eyes drifting away from the office, and out of focus.

To be brutally honest with herself... Kate Beckett didn't have a life before Richard Castle found his way in. There wasn't a life to weasel into. Only fog, and fear. Misguided trust, and that brick wall. Kate, the detective as she is, was a walking contradiction. She was trained to see the details. Notice the simple and harsh realities about life. But when it came to her own empty one? She was unaware of how truly miserable she was.

If she never stepped foot into that book launch party three and a half years ago... Kate would still be the tough nose detective. She would still focus solely on her job. Her mother's unsolved case always present in the back of her mind. She would go home to that empty apartment, with it's quiet walls. Take out, because she wouldn't have it in her to cook an actual meal. Who was she kidding? It was only her anyway. And of course long hot baths. The only thing constant and reassuring, comforting even. To slip into the hot bubbly water by candle light, and her nose in one of his books. She would dive into his stories. The life he wrote onto those pages. She'd lose herself in them. Sure, she read the same genre she lived in every day...only these had happy endings. The killer was always caught.

There has to be some sort of poetry in that. Because even though, Richard Castle wouldn't be a physical part of her life. He's still a part of it. Perhaps Dr. Burke can see this. Kate's attention is brought back to him when he starts to write something down. He doesn't normally do this. But obviously some sort of play of emotion caught his attention. And she does realize, that even in her thoughts she skirts around the real answer.

"I would be exactly where I was." She finally says.

"And where was that?" He glances up at her, in that calm demeanor of his that sometimes gives her conflicting responses. She often doesn't know if she should be calmed by it, or unnerved. Or maybe even annoyed.

"No where." She replies. "My life was just..." She bites her lip. "I was just... standing still." She says. _I was lost._

Dr. Burke nods. That stoic yet kind look on his face that never changes. So Kate doesn't know if it was just a nod of confirmation, or if he's even slightly proud f her statement. And then his head tilts to one side. Pen rests on the clipboard and his hands clasp in front of him. "Do you believe you would have found a way on your own?" He asks. Her eyes widen and yet she is not surprised that he latched onto her unspoken confession. And it's not like she hasn't expressed her feeling of being lost.

This is where she falters. Because a part of her, a large part, believes that she wouldn't have. And that won't do. Kate Beckett would never admit such a weakness. These therapy session used to make her feel weak. But now she finds her unspoken admissions and fear, a strength. Thinking back to her life before Richard Castle... having to come up with a scenario where she might possibly have pulled herself out of that standstill? Makes her utterly aware of her failures.

Kate looks away. Her eyes stinging and a lump forming in her throat. And then, very slowly, she shakes her head, blinking a few times more then necessary. _Be honest with yourself._ She scolds. "No..." She finalizes.

"Why do you think this?" He neither agrees, nor disagrees.

Kate takes in a long ragged breath. "Look where I am." She says, her eyes locking on his, her posture stiffening, somehow directing him about her surroundings. "I wouldn't be here if I could do this on my own."

He says nothing. And she finds herself becoming irritated. At him, his lack of encouraging words, and herself for being so weak.

"I'm not strong enough to pick myself up. If I never walked into that launch party, If Rick never asked to shadow me. I would still be miserable. I would still be consumed by my work, and my mothers murder, that I wouldn't give myself the chance to...to experience life." She says on a whisper, but her voice is strong. "Rick has shown me... everything I have been missing out on... and without him... I would still be in the dark."

"I think you underestimate your strength, Kate." Dr. Burke says, as if he didn't take in a word she just said. She glares at him. "Coming here, opening yourself up to me. To Rick, that's a sign of Strength. Knowing when we need help and seeking it."

"I know. But if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have found that strength. It's because of him that I am sitting here right now, trying to be better. Trying to be more than who I am, who I used to be. Because I don't want to go back to that."

"Good." He nods at her.

Her mouth opens in disbelief. This is one of those times where Dr. Burke asks a question he already knows the answer to. Just so he can hear all the thoughts spill from her mouth that she has been fighting and holding in for years. And it works. The relief and tension of holding back sags her shoulders, and she settles into her chair more comfortably.

"So you think you know what your life would be like if he never started shadowing you." He then says. "But what would it be like in the future?"

"The same." She replies quickly.

"How so."

She rolls her eyes. They JUST went over this. "I would be lost again. I would.. probably sink back into myself..build up that wall again..." She relents.

"Are you sure?"

"What? _Yes_ I am sure." She seethes.

"Worse?" he raises an eyebrow.

Kate crosses her arms. "To have someone in my life, who has had... an impact on me the way he has, suddenly disappear?" She asks him.

He nods, gesturing for her to go on.

"Would be more of a blow. Because...He showed me how to live, and without him, I don't know how to keep that going." She says.

"Answer this for me." Dr. Burke almost cuts her off.

"Mm." She hums sternly through tight lips.

"Would it really make a difference if Rick wasn't with you at the precinct?"

"What do you mean?" She asks, yet her heart quickens.

Dr. Burke uncrosses his leg, and sets his clipboard aside him. "Why would your life be any different, just because he's no longer allowed to shadow you? He's still in your life, Kate. In, and outside of work. He wouldn't be gone. Are you saying, that you wouldn't see him outside of work? You already do don't you?"

This pisses her off. Not only has he pointed out some sort of fear of hers. But this entire session seems pointless. Why not just start with that? So she refuses to answer. He's just going to keep talking anyway.

And she's not disappointed. "Are you afraid of the shift in your relationship with Rick, if he's no longer allowed to follow you?"

She's defiant.

"Are you afraid of the possibility, that having him around so much gives you some sort of security?"

"Like what?"

"That having him around all the time, buys you the time in moving forward with him."

"That's ridiculous." But her emotions spill forth. Fear flashes in her eyes.

"Is it really Kate?" He asks. "Maybe it's the push you need." And then he says no more.

Kate sits there perplexed. But there is something to what he just said. It's almost like what he said a few sessions ago: _what are you afraid of, that he wont wait for you? Or that he will? _It's the fear. If he waits.. it's like.. what if she's never ready? And if he doesn't...what is she going to do without him? If he keeps shadowing her... it's just a crutch. He's not going anywhere, she'll take her time...use it as an excuse to prolong this even further. Because she's scared. Scared of messing it up... And then... If he's not allowed to follow her... She has no choice but to move forward, because she doesn't want to lose him. Dr. Burke is right. It would be the push she needs. But she's still scared, but not of being ready... because she is, she realizes... but now her real fear is what if he's not ready?

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><p><strong> A cliffy in some sense. I saw something Stana said about Kate being ready, but now it's like she's waiting for Castle to be ready. The sign that he is as ready as she is.<strong>


	16. Catalyst

**Spoilers for "Embarrassment of Bitches"**

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><p><em><strong>Catalyst <strong>_

Her hand is tingly. The prickly warm sensation making it's way up her arm, spreading through to her veins like wildfire. When it reaches her heart, it picks up in beats per second, radiating this vibration to all other parts of her body, which hums in a soft satisfaction. Although it brings a vibrant glow to her flushed cheeks, the absence of his actual hand has left her not completely sated. It's the absence that makes her grow less fonder by the minute. By the weeks and years leading up to it, and the following day after.

"So who did the dog choose?" Dr. Burke is asking, but Kate is hardly listening. Her hands are in her lap, one softly caressing the other. But it's not her soft touch she feels. It's the ghost of a one Richard Castle's.

There is something about the action that has left her breathless...and he was just rubbing small circles into her hand... it's not like he kissed her. _Oh if only we had kissed. _No. But he mine as well have. There was something...intimate, in the friction between their flesh. However innocent it started out as. She is sure he didn't mean it at first. He was just caught up in the excitement of the dog. That childlike gleam in his eyes, of pure happiness that always plucks at her heart strings. _I want to put that light in his eyes...keep it there._

_ "_hmm?" She asks, looking up, but not stopping her hand from rubbing the other.

"Who did the dog choose?" Dr. Burke asks again patiently.

"Neither of us." She says, the disappointment flashing across her face once more.

His eyebrows raise just a fraction, and he folds his hands under his chin like he does sometimes. "Do you know why you wanted that particular dog so much?" He then asks.

Kate looks up, frowning. "I have been meaning to get a dog." She defends.

"Yes." He nods slightly. "But the way you talked about this one, Royal. In association with Rick. It just seemed like you have more of an incentive."

"And what would that be?" She asks.

"You tell me."

She sighs. She really hates it when he does that. It means she needs to think more about this... and she's already done enough of it. Okay... why.. why would she want Royal around more than any other dog? That spot between her eyes wrinkles as she slips into deep thought. But her thoughts are muddled. Every image of the dog brings her back to Rick and her hand...it's just a hand... Okay the dog. Rick loves that dog...they could have had shared custody.. which really wouldn't of worked.. but if Royal had chosen her...

"Then I could use the dog as an excuse to have Rick over...because he loves that dog."

That small panic feeling she gets every time too much about herself has been revealed, jolts through her heart. She rubs at the back of her hand, as if feeling his thumb there and stares off. There was no mistaking the look on her face as he so innocently took her hand in his. The quick circles on her skin as he animatedly talk of how much Royal loved it between the eyes. But her face betrayed her every desire. The caress alone rose a want in her. So unadulterated and confounded. She could see it reflecting in those eyes of his. She longs for the man shes been pining over for years. And not just for his touch... but for the feelings behind them. His heart, which she knows she has. _Selfishly._

"Do you really need a dog to keep him around?"

"No... I mean..." Of course she doesn't need the dog. She's really just insecure about holding his interests in her on her own. _That's it._ But why would she need another excuse? It's clear he wants to spend time with her. _To be with me._ It's constantly showing all over his face.

No there was no masking it. Just like now for her, and when he came over with Royal...It jumped forth from it's hiding place deep in her heart. Spread across her face, glowed in her wide green eyes as it took her by surprise. Him as well. She could see it when she looked up. Her breath knocked out of her and the capabilities of speech whisked from her parted mouth the second her eyes met his. He even acknowledged it. How could he not? Her feelings were so raw right then, and even he had nothing to say. But she could see that he tried, and failed. Even stopped the quick succession of his thumb to her flesh, only to regain himself and continue, only smoother, softer...all the meaning he could muster behind it. He looked so hopeful. That maybe.. he could convince her further. Not let go, but sooth everything unsaid right out of her mouth...She was frozen in shock at how affected she was. plain as day. And what could she do?

Nothing.

The damaged had already been done.

She was so swept up, the only audible thing she could say was his name. And not even then did it come out in warning. It was halfhearted. Almost as if to say "keep going, I dare you." and oh how she wanted him too. If one little touch can ignite such a passion in her...imagine what more could do. Kate hums softly to herself, the daydream taking over her previous panic. This causes Dr. Burke to tilt his head to one side quizzically.

But she says nothing about it. Just like all the times her and Caste have had moments like the hand rubbing that have gone unspoken. Is this another thing added to that ever growing list? A Pandora's box full of secrets and feelings? Only the box she holds so dear does not carry the evils of the world. Not really. Just the tragedy's she can't let go. That hold her back from the hope buried deep in the mass of regrets and fears. Hope.

Perhaps there is a small leak in the box. A pinhole of a chance. Slowly seeping out her inner desires, and giving her that inkling of Hope...but what would the ramifications be if she lifted the lid? Everything would spill out. Her fears, her past. The inability to let anyone in. _But would it really matter?_ She wonders, as she sits in this office. In the chair that marks a strange resemblance to her body frame deep in the cushions. The lid has been knocked off in here. And it's only been making a better difference. So what would be the difference if the box was opened for all of Castle to see? It could be there catalyst. Because isn't it the things inside this illusive box, that is keeping her from diving in? That maybe. Just maybe, the only good thing inside, is the one thing that could concur all else.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	17. Noose

**Major spoilers for _The Blue Butterfly_**

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><p><em><strong>Noose<strong>_

She's having a hard time listening to Dr. Burke this session. Although, when she speaks, she has this air about her. One that does not give away her inner struggle. Not one bit. She's shocked. Otherwise Dr. Burke would have noticed by now.

The collar of her shirt feels like it's closing in on her neck.

She can't breath.

Dr. Burke sits across from her. His body is relaxed as it always is, but Kate can't seem to reel that part of her in. She squeezes her hands between her knees, shoulders tight, body tense. And she keeps blinking more times than necessary. An annoying sting behind her eyes. She gulps, controlling her facial expressions. She then nods slowly, to a question he just asked, but she didn't hear.

"What makes this case different?" He asks, perhaps again she is unsure.

Her mind is on several things at once. Conflicting with the fluttery feeling this case gave her. She has a hard time finding her voice for such a simple question to answer. But her lungs feel like they take in any air. "As a case in general?" She takes the elastic from her wrist and ties her hair up. She sighs a little in relief when her hair is no longer touching her neck.

"I mean in the sense, that you let this one slide." He gestures in the air, making a parallel comparison of the one a few years ago. The one where she and Castle found the girl frozen. That it wasn't one of his stories, and they couldn't just rewrite the ending. But Dr. Burke doesn't know about that case. Kate is sure he is just comparing her strict role as an NYPD detective, and murder is not something you just let slide.

Only this time, Kate did rewrite the ending in the unfinished journal. She let the lovers go. "It wasn't." She then says. She tilts her head to one side, putting on a face a bit more serious then when she said this to Joe and Vera. "Why would I arrest them?"

Dr. Burke raises an eyebrow.

"We were looking for a Joe Flynn and Vera MulQueen." She replies cooly.

"Of course." Dr. Burke says with a nod. "And you only knew Viola and Jerry."

"Yes." She swallows hard.

He nods again, but his eyes give him away. "Sounded like self defense to me anyway."

Kate smiles at that. Her mind drifting the love she got to witness. That for all they went through, they still had their love. How they escaped from their lives and built one together. "Those two really made it." She says after a bit of quiet. Her voice is dipped in awe and envy.

"It's a real life fairytale, isn't it?" Dr. Burke asks Kate.

She nods. "Mm hmm." She hums in agreement after another long moment, although she's not really paying attention. "A walking fairytale." She sounds far away. Which she is, because now she's the gangsters mole.

Bound at his side because she rather have a tethered life, than a lonely one as a mere cigarette girl. The one with the mysterious past. She's the woman who fell in love in a bar. Unavailable and completely unaware of her own ignorance. There is more out there for Vera, than flashy dresses and diamonds. These things are mere objects.

Sometimes making her feel more hollow than alive.

They can't give her peace. Or keep her safe. In fact. Perhaps she's put herself in a riskier life, than if she stayed a cigarette girl. It's more of a danger to her than anything. And she does see this.

She tries not to gasp.

"You said Castle put you in the role as the femme fatale?" Dr. Burke asks now.

Kate's back, the faint sound of 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love .' sings quietly in her mind. She looks up at Dr. Burke who is waiting patently, and then she's off again. A smile creasing the sides of her mouth. She now lets her thoughts go to how Castle's voice sounded so sexy as he read her the journal.

"Yes, but he didn't want me to know that." She replies. She stops blinking so much, the sting not so bad. The thought of him easing her a little, her breathing evens out as well.

"And so then you, in turn placed yourself and him in those roles?" Of course he knows this.

_"Kate's heart quickened."_ She can hear him now, see his face as she called him on it and his cover by saying that it was _fate_, Whose heart quickened. She didn't believe him, but she let it slide. Because she was doing the same thing. It wasn't the femme fatale and the PI that she saw in her mind when Castle said they were about to kiss. But imagining herself and Castle leaning into each other and-

"Yes. I did." Kate looks at Dr. Burke, bringing herself back yet again even though she can still hear the music. Feel the rush of excitement. The heat of Joe and Vera's love. As if it were her own. How they fell in love and risked it all. She knows her love for Castle.. but she's unable to risk it.

"And what happened to the necklace?"

Her hand flies to her neck. It's not even subtle and she has to look away when his eyebrow raises at her reaction.

"Are you all right?" He asks.

It's a noose.

Her fingers wrap around the chain of her necklace. White knuckles as she gulps down air. She pulls it down as far way from her throat as possible until it digs into her flesh. She's got a noose around her neck, and it's been getting tighter and tighter since the case. Making it harder for her to breath, She just wants to breath again.

"Huh?" She asks, dropping the necklace onto her flushing chest. It's getting warm in here. Her finger pinches the ring as she keeps breathing in as much as she can. "Yea.. it's just.. hot.. in here." She replies unconvincingly.

"I can open a window, if you like?" Dr Burke suggests.

Kate nods a few times, pinching the ring harder... as if suffocating it, like it's suffocating her. When he gets up, she uses the time he has his back to her to pull at her shirt, feeling as though the collar is closing in on her neck, teaming up with the chain of her necklace to hang her by the throat. But the more she pulls, the tighter it seems to get, as though it's cursed. She feels as though this ring is poison. The thought makes her shudder and hold in a sob.

"Why don't you take it off?"

Kate startles as Dr. Burke turns once again, the advice rolling around in her psyche like a marble searching for the right pocket. She looks down, pulling the ring so it's in her sights, and at the same time, the marble rolls towards it's goal. It teeters on the edge... waiting while Kate wonders why she doesn't. Just take it off, put it in the box at home, and breath? She can't let her mom down, he told her that once, and it might be something she believes. But as her eyes continue to sting, her greens drowning in the un shed tears, Kate can't seem to let her go. She stops pinching the ring, instead enveloping it in her hand like a warm embrace. Warm, and yet...somehow cold and empty.

This ring is a curse... It draws her in. Filling her with false emotions, blinding her from the clarity she can only find if she removes this noose from her neck. Her hand crushes the ring against her chest like a lifeline. The only life she's ever known. And when she looks back up into the eyes of her therapist, the marble rolls back into the unknown.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>

**Btw... there won't be a chapter for _Pandora_ because.. from the looks of things, Kate will be too busy with more life threatening/ Castley things to go to therapy. So After I see the second Part. THEN I will write one for both.**

**Review!**


	18. Keystone

**Major spoilers for _Pandora and Linchpin_**

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><p><em><strong>Keystone<strong>_

Her eyes are focused on the wooden manikin by her chair. It's lifeless body poised in action. Stiff and standing still, like her. She feels as though she's ready, and yet unwilling to move forward. Like her body won't comply with her wants, and maybe it's just the ramifications of this case. She feels as she did when she made it out of that freezer. Only she doesn't only feel cold but weighed down by the ghost of soaking wet clothes and a chill in her bones so close to death she can imagine it's outcome. It's another thing to add to the list. The radiation, the freezer, the bomb, the hanger, her moms case, and now nearly drowning at the bottom of the Hudson.

And then there were the human obstacles: Will, Ellie Monroe, Demming, Gina, Josh, Conrad, Serena, and now Sophia. Might as well add her own name to that list as well...

"I met someone..." she starts. It's been over five minutes since she sat down, and he's been waiting for her. She just hasn't known where to begin.

"Oh?" He asks. Kate actually thinks she hears a hint of something in there, but she is not certain what.

"From Castle's past." She clarifies, her voice has a slight edge to it. It still stings, still feeds off her heart that nearly broke the entire time she was around them. Seeing the way he looked at her...

He was only supposed to look at her life that.

Dr Burke leans back in his chair. "Oh." He says again, and this time she is sure she hears relief.

She tries not to tilt her head in curiosity at this and nods. "I was..."

"Jealous?" He offers

"It was more than that."

"How so?"

"I wasn't jealous like I was of Jordan Shaw, and not like I was over Serena..." With Jordan, Castle was impressed by her. And with Serena...well, he could have dated her. No...this time it's altogether new, and incredibly painful. And like Jordan, Sophia made Kate feel insignificant, only ten fold.

"Sophia was.. his muse once." She looks down at her hands. "And I.. I mean, I have no illusions to him not being with other woman. Muses. Having other muses but it..."

"Hurt? Made you feel less special in his eyes?"

"More than I would like to admit."

"Why."

She looks up. "I felt threatened."

"Your reactions to this...other muse are only natural."

She purses her lips. "Yes but..." She trails off again, a long strangled sigh whooshing past her lips as if she's been coveting it for a long time. It leaves her chest feeling empty, and yet heavy at the same time. "It's more than that." She's barely audible, her chin touching her chest as if in shame or defeat. There are so many emotions this woman rose in her, Kate can't express them.

Dr. Burke sits quietly across from her, as if he knows a huge admission is about to take place.

"I let her get to me like I did...the jealousy, but mostly the hurt...because of what happened in the car." Her voice rises but barely, and her chin stays on her chest.

"What happened in the car?" He asks, imploring and gentle.

"Castle got my gun, shot my belt off and then the back windows." She says, and gives nothing further.

When he says nothing, she lets her mind crash into the water. Feel the panic of sinking fast and never getting out alive. Not only was it the fate of the world on her mind, drifting into the depths of the water with them, but also all the things unsaid that would continue to stay locked up in her own personal Pandora's box. And not even then could she bring herself to rip it open. Because at the time, despite the circumstances, she still had faith. She still had that fight in her that reminded her that they always get through things like this. And sinking to the bottom was no exception. But everything was against them it seemed. She lost her gun, the water was rising fast, and her belt buckle was jammed. Everything in that moment screamed, This. Is. It.

But it wasn't. She tried to hold onto that.. and she just...couldn't anymore when Castle didn't come back up for air. Her heart had stopped when she reached out for him and felt nothing. Called his name and didn't get a response...She let herself drown with him for that moment. And yet, there is always something left in her...she couldn't let it be the end.

With a stern look at herself in the mirror, she urged herself on...but when it came apparent that it was no use... That she couldn't break free. It just wasn't worth it anymore. And for a fleeting moment, Kate Beckett relinquished control. It wasn't her life that flashed before her eyes before she gripped the steering wheel...it was her future if she kept fighting. At the time, she thought Castle had drowned and so Kate didn't see the worth in fighting. All her hard work, all her therapy sessions and chiseling at her wall...would be for nothing if she made it out alive and he wasn't standing beside her.

And so she released her hold on the steering wheel, and let herself float into nothingness.

"Do you think Sophia is the reason you gave up in the car?"

He asked such an amazing question, and he did it so easily that she is left speechless. Kate lets her own silence envelope her. It's deafening and loaded. She doesn't want to admit it. Admit that there was someone else in Castle's life that could have been...more. She had a secret fear that like Sophia, she too would become just another helpful muse in his books and he would move on.

"You are afraid that you aren't different." He says.

Kate looks up, tears swimming in her eyes she swears she didn't think she needed to feel, but here they are. "She said something to me that...at the time, made me believe that I was no different then her and the partnership they had."

He tilts his head ever so slightly to indicate he is listening.

"Longing." Kate says through a gulp. "She said that when she and Castle met, there was an intense attraction right away..."

Like when Kate first met Castle. Dr. Burke doesn't need to ask to hear what she's not saying.

"The tension was all they had. And when it was gone...she said that she used to wish they had never..." She swallows, "Slept together, because without it, they had that longing." She tries not to choke.

"And you think that once you cross that line, the longing will be gone, and you will be left with nothing?"

She nods. "But she lied about a lot of things." She says raising her head, and a hint of a smile is there in her eyes.

"So, you think she was lying when she said that?"

"I'd like to think so..."

"But why would she lie about that?"

There it is. Why would she lie about that? Was she really that sadistic, did she really want to hurt Castle and her that much? "I don't know. I'd like to think she was just that crazy. But it still pushed the boulder, you know?"

"I do."

Kate goes quiet, brow furrowing. "Why can't you just tell me he loves me? You are my psychiatrist, why can't you just tell me what I want to hear?" Her voice is both bitter and desperate.

"You know I can't do that. You know I am not here to tell you whether he does love you or not."

"Then why are you here?" She nearly glares at him.

"I am here to allow you to understand your choices. Not make them for you."

She looks away. "This is just so hard..."

"No journey of happiness or self-discovery is easy, Kate. But what I can tell you is that you are strong and you can do this."

Kate pauses for just a second, decisions made, "Then I choose to believe she was lying."

The end of this day...this week has surprisingly brought her relief instead of emotional turmoil. Sure, her emotions are still everywhere, but they are no longer conflicted. She's sure of them, now that they have somewhat sorted themselves out, no longer gripping at her heart like a jealous vice. It doesn't hurt anymore. It's what she's latched onto at the end of this session.

This hope and ease and promise.

It helps her let go of what could have been potentially the worst case scenario for life as they know it. And it all righted itself with the saving of a little girls life.

That's enough for her.

This is what she tells Dr. Burke, in so few words because it still is classified. But she has always been good at holding back. Only now she's not so sure how she feels about it. And even though Sophia is gone, and Kate is no longer so hurt by her presence...she still feels as though she's still holding back, but not from Castle, but herself.

A tear slips down her cheek, and her eyes stay at the ceiling, letting gravity do the rest. That fear is gone... it left her the moment she realized that Sophia lied about so many things. And she felt foolish for believing her. She let it claw at her heart painfully. Feel as though what she and Castle have is nothing more than an impossible air of tension.

Sophia did keep truth in one thing... the major difference between Kate Beckett, and Sophia Turner. And that is Richard Castle's love. Sophia didn't have it, and without it, the longing was gone. But for Kate, it's everything they have. It will never go away, because they love each other. In fact. That longing will only become stronger when she lets that last brick fall.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	19. The road less Traveled

__**Sorry it took me longer! I have been sick, and I have hardly been able to work on my other fic _Autumn Skies. _But here you go! It turned out differently than the usual chapters, I hope you all enjoy :D**

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><p><em><strong>The Road Less Traveled <strong>_

There is no wrong or right way to love. It all depends on the person, the people involved. And it's always going to be hard at one point no matter who you are or how you choose to love.. It's also with the amount of heart that could perhaps define a persons way of loving.

Like life, love is something that we create for ourselves. The fate of our own hearts, lies in the palm of our own hand. And it's us, who choose how to use it. Who to give it to. Whether to just keep it to ourselves. Lock it away and perhaps never allow that beauty of someones elses love, to fill us..

It's very likely, that we are oftentimes discouraged from it. That the obstacles in which may otherwise trap us, or misguide us from using our hearts properly, make us afraid. And so we are unable to use it to it's full potential. Not everyone can love with all of it, not even half. Kate can gladly say, that at least she loves with half of her heart. And that is something. It's moments like last night, and all the moments they have ever shared since they met, that has pumped the blood from one living side to the other. Gives her a sense of wholeness she might have forgotten about, or may have never gotten the chance to feel.

There is something magnificent happening inside her today, since last night. Actually, it's been slowly manifesting for a long time now. It's almost equivalent to the change one experiences on first the day of spring. When she can finally lift her face into the sun, feel the full blast of it's rays on her winter deprived skin. The feel of the sweet smelling breeze on her face, sifting through her hair and rising a gentle awakening in her soul. It's the promise of change, the endless possibilities. A fresh start as the leaves appear and the flowers work themselves steadily from the ground. And they will rise up and bloom, like this feeling that spreads through her being.

When she had reached out so naturally, and took his hand, this awareness, in a way it never has before, started in that one half of her heart she had forgotten existed. The one half of of everything that is Kate. This feeling seeped out in all directions from there. Tingles of tiny shock-waves into her nerves, her heart, her veins, every limb in her body. It spread in a crescendo of bliss, and light. This overwhelming thing that she's felt hints of here and there. A feeling she would love to wrap herself in for the rest of her life.

And when it reached her face, it sparkled in her eyes, softened her features, made her glow, and then tugged at the corners of her mouth until she had to cover the evidence with her hand. But she couldn't. Still can't. It's written all over her face as if the writer himself took a pencil to her mouth, her eyes, and her heart.

She's so wrapped up in this splendor, that she doesn't notice the door open, or Dr. Burke walk passed her to stand by the window. It's not until a soft wisp of air, cool and enticing, lightly brushing at her cheekbones, that Kate becomes aware of him.

With her left cheek in her palm, elbow propped up on the armrest, she turns slightly towards him as he sits down. She's still hiding her mouth in her hand, but the wrinkles at the edge of each eye gives her away. She can't help it, this feeling is so...intoxicating to her. It's everything. She wants to breathe it in every chance she gets.

"You look happy." Dr. Burke remarks, his own smile creeping onto his face, it's infectious even for him.

Kate tilts her head to one side and darts her eyes up to the ceiling modestly. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't want to. As if the seal of her lips, and the curve of her smile is keeping it all in. If she opens her mouth, these feelings she's grown so attached to might fly out, and then they will be lost forever.

Dr. Burke leans back in his chair with that air about him that would usually irritate her. The way he shows hardly any emotion. Just the same indifference. Contradicting every single emotion that has ever flowed through Kate in her time here. Only today, in this moment, not even his indifference can shake the smile off her face, or the flutter in her entire heart.

It's almost like an epiphany. This feeling brought on by a simple act. An act so natural she can see herself doing it everyday, a habit really. And what makes this meaningful, on a completely new and exciting level; is that she didn't have to think about it. It's almost as though, she's aware, and unaware of the change. The smiles that grace those lips everyday. They are not forced, nor thought out. They just happen.

"How was Martha's show?" He asks, breaking through to Kate's inner daydream for a moment. "I know that you seemed excited about spending time with his family."

That night, Kate Beckett stood in the middle of her usual path, and unconsciously considered which one she would travel by. The way we choose to love, also chooses the path in which we take in our lives. Kate has always walked the same one. Warn down and darkened from constant ware. Her own feet had trudged along it, lonely, and damaged. But last night, as she walked along her well worn path, she came across two roads that diverged into the woods.

There has always been one other direction which has never escaped Kate's attention. The one she has always stood before, and yet never traveled. The flowers were more appealing than the mundane of dirt and gravel at her feet. And yet, it was the fact that this other way, was so alluring that it scared her. She was afraid that the look of it, the beauty of it, could deceive her. Still, as she diverged onto her usual route, Kate could not help but watch the other one slowly slip from her view with longing.

"It was..." Kate uncovers her mouth, settling her hand comfortably onto her knee.

Sitting there in Castle's home, with his mother and his daughter. It felt right. It was something she had not experienced fully, but she liked it. She wasn't afraid of it. She realized that she doesn't have to walk these roads alone. She's always known that he will stand beside her, walk into the darkness with her if need be. And that is why, without having to think twice about it, she accepted it. By taking his hand, she had taken the road less traveled.

"Lets just say.." She looks up, squeezing her own knee as if it were Castle's warm hand. "That I could get used to it."

And _that _has made all the difference.

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><p><strong>So what did you all think?<strong>


	20. Great Expectations

**Spoilers for **_**A Dance With Death. **_** Sorry it took me until after Monday. I had a lot going on. Thanks to my partner for helping me a bit with this.**

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><p><strong>G<strong>**reat Expectations **

The cloudless sky casts its brilliant sun over the city. High above the buildings it has risen, and Kate ignores its beaming glory. Instead, her eyes are cast downwards. Not in shame, or defeat. But rather in quiet reflection. A pondering of sorts, with her hip resting against the windowsill, her arms down, one hand against the glass, the other playing with the grain of wood on the sill.

She scrapes at it, all the while looking out at the new yorkers below. They are busybodies, worker ants scattering the streets of their home. Kate never really lets herself stop and witness the other people around her at work. Maybe her job has ruined a bit of that aspect for her. Now she must force herself to see the good in the people below, or otherwise she is constantly wondering which one of them she will be interrogating next.

But she does know, that like herself, each person has a dream. Aspirations for themselves of where they would like to be. She understands how Castle must feel as she stands here and wonders what their story is. What drives them. What their dreams are and if any of them ever reached them.

She once knew what she wanted to be, and not so much who, because at that time in her life, she hadn't the slightest idea. Other than striving for her dreams, she was also striving for her own identity. And of course along the way, not only had she stepped onto a completely different path, but also lost her sense of self along the way.

"So you said, that you were going to be pre law." Dr Burke asks, He's sitting in his chair, face angled down at his notebook.

It's our dreams that keep us going in life. Kate Beckett wanted to be the first female chief Justice of the supreme court. That was her dream. And if it wasn't for the tragic circumstances that had changed her course in life, Kate Beckett just might be on her way to fulfilling that dream.

Kate nods, seeing her ghost like twin in the glass move her head slowly. "Yes." She then says, realizing he did not see.

"Do you ever regret becoming a detective?" He then asks.

Kate turns from the window just as a woman enters the building across the street. Why is she there Kate wonders. Where is she going, and will every moment from when she entered, to when she exits change existentially and turn her away from her her initial sought out plan? Is that how life is supposed to work? Kate wants to understand. Or does everything have its own reason whether she is allowed to know it or not?

"Because I never lived up to my dream?" She settles on the windowsill, back against the glass, arms crossed.

He nods.

"No, because I found a new one."

Dr. Burke looks at her carefully. She can tell he is unsure of where she is going with this or if it will turn out like he is to expect. "And has it lived up to your expectations?"

She stands, walking towards her chair. "Castle said to me that we rely on dreams to keep us going in life." She stops, placing her hands on the back of it but now looking at Dr. Burke. Just silently working out this piece of thought Castle had handed her.

"Do you believe that?" He asks. Not to say it's wrong or right, but that the general goal is her coming to these conclusions strictly on her own.

"Of course. Where would we all be if we didn't have something to strive for? To live for..." She trails off, picking at the couch. "But I think, sometimes we forget why we are doing it. What it was we set out to do. I think.. I got lost in the justification of it all... and...let the thing that is supposed to keep me going, tear me down."

"And what about Castle?"

Kate sighs, rubbing a hand over her hair and walking around the chair to sink into the cushions. She bites down on her lip, her heart fluttering at just the sound of his name, along with a sort of painful pang. "He's..." She looks at her hands, and then back up again. "I have learned to set other goals for myself. I don't want to be...consumed by just...what I do. But..be more of who.. I want to be, who I am. And Rick, is someone I want to share that with." She finishes rather quiet, pained even.

"You don't sound hopeful."

"I..." Her shoulders shrug to her ears. Pausing there. "put it off too long." The drop back down with a defeated sigh. As if that's it.

"Do you really think that?"

"It's like you said...am I more afraid that he won't wait for me, or that he will."

He nods at her for remembering. "And have you come to a conclusion?"

she lifts her chin, high and stares up at the ceiling, eyes becoming glassy. "Both." She pauses, swallowing hard. "I think...by putting it off too long, he's waited all this time, he won't want to stay. I'm afraid..." One tear trickles down her cheek. "I'm afraid he won't think it's worth it... the wait."

"The wait, or the wait for you?"

"How is that different?" She tilts her head to one side, eyes now on him.

"Well the wait.." He leans forward, "is something you are both forced to do, something you both build towards."

Kate's brow creases in thought. She then nods in understanding, "but the wait for me is..."

"About you Kate..._you _making the decision."

Tugging her legs up into the chair, she crosses them and straightens. "But I have made the decision." She says incredibly sure of herself.

"Then why haven't you acted on it?"

Her mouth drops open slightly. She stares down at her pants trying to find a reasonable answer for that. "Timing." She nods when she comes her conclusion. "We have always had bad timing... I .. I just want to make sure the timing is right."

"Isn't the point, to not wait anymore?"

Kate nods. "Yes."

"So what's your next move?"

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><p><strong>Thoughts? Hopefully I will get the other one to you much quicker.<strong>


	21. Out Loud

**Spoilers for _47 Seconds_**

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><p><em><strong>Out Loud<strong>_

Her eyes are focused on the chair. The space Dr. Burke occupies, but her mind is elsewhere and he's not really there to her. Her thoughts are at the precinct, eyes on the empty chair by her desk. She was thinking about her next move. She truly was, and she almost told him. She was _so _close. The words were ready to be spoken freely, and yet again they were interrupted.

She shouldn't be surprised. It's their thing. Right up there with not talking about how they feel. But without time being on their side, the unspoken would die on their lips to never be resolved. They are both hiding behind this pathetic agreement they silently signed off on, and Kate realizes that it doesn't do them any good.

But, how many more opportunities are going to be missed before there is any sort of forward motion?

She's beginning to think that there never will be. How much longer can she stand this? Now that she is _ready_, how much longer can she wait before she completely loses hope? And then there is Castle...

"It's too late." Kate says defeatedly, Dr. Burke appearing in his chair.

"What do you mean?"

"I waited too long... He's.. he's been acting strange. He's pulling back I can feel it. I.." Kate sighs dropping her head into her hands. "I don't understand what changed. One minute he's about to tell me something, and the next thing I know, he has nothing to say and he's distant." Kate rubs her face as she brings it up to look at Dr. Burke.

"Do you think maybe he heard you say you remember?"

"No." Kate shakes her head, brow creasing. "No he was nowhere near that room when I went in..." Kate thinks back, remembering the coffee cup she had found on her desk "or out." She finishes quietly.

Dr. Burke looks skeptical but says nothing.

"I ... I imagined a future with him. What we could have together, _if _he ever forgives me when I tell him." Kate ruffles her hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. "But now...it's as though a switch has been flipped."

Dr. Burke tilts his head to one side. "How did you feel about this case?"

She frowns at the subject change. "Like every other case." She crosses her arms.

"But it was different wasn't it?"

"How was it different?"

"There was a _bomb_, it must have had some sort of effect on you. The idea that there might be another one out there, a mass casualty."

Kate only nods, pursing her lips and looking away.

Dr. Burke leans to one side of his chair.

She lets out a heavy sigh, knowing he won't relent. "It did, okay...this case was not like the others. Castle made me see that those five people didn't die for a reason. At least not in our usual cases... but they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"It makes you think doesn't it?"

Kate nods. "It made me think of... Castle. We had a conversation about...how nobody's tomorrow is guaranteed."

"You wanted to tell him didn't you?

"I tried. I really did. The words were just about to come out when we got interrupted. _Again._" She grits out that last part frowning deeply.

"Then maybe it was the case."

"What?"

"That made Castle act so strangely."

She shakes her head. " I thought that at first.. But after awhile it seemed more than that...I don't know."

"Why not, you said he thought this case was not like the others.."

"I know I said that but.." Her jaw tightens , utterly frustrated. "It doesn't explain why he would pull back from me, wouldn't he have sought some sort of.. comfort? I saw him be there for Alexis, and.. he knows I would have been there for him, but instead, he grew more detached from me, why?"

"You tell me."

"I can't!" She flies up out of her chair, pushing her hand into her hair. "I told you I don't know!"

"Do you really not know, or are you just afraid of the answer?" He asks watching her pace back and forth behind her chair and gnaw on her bottom lip. "You know the person who has the answers you want Kate..."

"Maybe I...should..." Kate pauses in the middle of the room.

"How's Lanie?"

"What?" Her hand drops from her hair and she turns towards him.

"Check in with Lanie, sometimes we need to be told the same thing twice."

Kate stares at him, mouth open and that crease between her eyes of pure bafflement. She's already confused and frustrated and he's making it worse.

"And sometimes, we listen to those we trust more, someone you can be open with. A friend. And I think that person is Lanie. You should reconnect with her."

"I haven't told her yet.. I haven't told her much of anything since..." Kate bows her head, clutching to the end of the chair. "I have been a lousy friend..."

"Have a girls night out. Maybe now is the time to confide in her. Think of it as... a step closer to telling Castle how you feel. Maybe letting it out to someone who knows _you_. It will help you."

"Why would that help? I mean. I want to but how does telling Lanie, help?"

"Small steps Kate, admitting to someone other than yourself, out loud_, _that you love Castle will...make it real.

"It is real."

Dr. Burke smiles.

Kate stands up straighter. "But...I'm afraid I'm losing him."

"How so?"

She drops her hand with a sigh, staring at the window. "This time I feel like we are on an entirely different page. As though I've read too far ahead and he's back on page 6."

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	22. Sands of Time

**Spoilers for**_** The Limey**_

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><p><em><strong>Sands of Time <strong>_

We are _all _grains of sand, tumbling down together in a giant hourglass. Perhaps never to rest in one singular moment long enough to revel in it, only to be pushed along and to pass each other by.

Kate feels more like the tiniest speck of sand. Forever falling amongst everything and everyone else. She's not sure when it will be her time to fall in through to the other side, or what it would mean if she did.

And so, she turns the little thing in her hand. Over and over in her slender fingers, a crease between her eyes as she watches the sand shift from one side to the other. They move uneasily as she refuses to let it settle.

The shadows of sand, free-falling into the bottom container, cast darkly against her pant leg when she eventually rests it flat on the top of her thigh. Kate tilts her head to one side, watching with a morbid curiosity as its contents flow like a sandstorm. Down, down until there is nearly nothing left and then she flips it over once more.

It's like a do over every time she lets it stand up straight, the grains of sand feeding through the crevice steadily. But as they seem to speed up, becoming half empty instead of half full, she panics and flips it back over. It's a vicious circle. A state of unrest and she's overcome with a maelstrom of emotions when she thinks of how he's been acting.

Another turn around, another passage of moments lost and unforeseeable through her fingers..

And yet other times, she feels more like the frantic hands cupped underneath, trying to catch every last bit she can. Afraid that even if she misses one, however miniscule, everything she's worked towards means nothing.

Not if she can't hold onto it.

For each little bit that filters through her hopeful fingers, she loses faith in ever keeping the wall up between the sand of remaining moments, and the cold ground which defines the end. But is it truly the end, or does the journey down the hole she will inevitably fall through, depict the endless possibilities?

The question is...is she brave enough to find out?

Can Kate Beckett weather the sandstorm in which she's been struggling through all her life, to make it through till that end, that might just be the beginning?

Of what, she is unsure.

This place she sits, week after week, is the thing that shapes the confines she's built for herself.. It's the curve of the glass. The space that lets her breath before she is forced through the tiny crack in reality. The moment before the descent where she must choose where she must go.

And as she hangs by the tips of her fingers to the slippery edge, Kate looks up at Dr. Burke. The tiny hour glass pauses halfway on its side. "I called him." She says. Squeezing the inward curve between her fingers.

Picking up that phone and talking to a man other than Richard Castle about going out for drinks...? _That _was a step forward.

One she wasn't all too keen on making. It may have seemed like it as she so confidently took him up on his offer. But in the back of her mind, that place she often seeks out as an escape, she knew it was only temporary.

Judging by the expression on her face, Dr. Burke senses a lack of enthusiasm towards her step forward. "I would say well done, Kate. But I would like to hear from you, how you feel about this turn of events."

"He wasn't Castle." She replies in all honesty, voice even and ending on a small sigh.

Dr. Burke nods his head as if he suspected as much. "Then why did you go out with this other man?" He then asks. He knows the answer of course.

Detective Inspector Colin Hunt was a backup plan. A scapegoat of sorts to her lost hope in a man who has been pulling back from her. She didn't know what else to do. And if she couldn't make that step forward with her new sense of self with Richard Castle, then why not with the next best thing?

Colin Hunt was a test.

Kate tested the waters, but at the end of the night, she had rather been kissed goodnight by a completely different man, the one who seems to have no further thought of tomorrow.

But, It was a moment she took advantage of. Because If Castle was going to move on, then so was she.

And just like Josh, with this man, she could have one foot out the door. Only this time, it was a tiny step on a forward direction on her own. And although it was a big deal in her recovery, she wasn't as fulfilled as she thought she should be.

At least this time she could say she hadn't let a moment slip past her, however disheartening it was. It didn't feel as right as she hoped it would.

"I couldn't let another moment pass me by." She finally says, drawing her eyes up to the ceiling as she often does, and avoiding the watchful gaze of her therapist.

It doesn't take a professional to know she regrets it. "And in the end you wish you had." He states.

Kate looks back down at the hourglass, the small grains of sand falling slowly on a slope into the bottom, tumbling amongst each other, but never settling as more rain down on the rested. "I would like a do over." She replies honestly, staring at the sand and yet still letting them fall as they wish.

"Everyone wishes for a do over once and again." He says. "Perhaps a second chance."

"I've run out of second chances." She says as more sand leaves the upper half.

Time is running out. She knows this, and yet she's letting the last bit continue on its journey towards the unknown. Falling off of her in waves as she stubbornly holds on until she has no other choice. There should be another choice. She thinks, as the final grits of her time seep through the hole, leaving just herself and a few remaining grains of hope.

"It's your move." Dr. Burke tells her.

Kate nods ever so slowly, tipping the hourglass onto its side.


	23. The Silver Lining

**Sorry this is so late to those of you who are still reading! But here it is! This contains spoilers for _Headhunters_**

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><p><em><strong>Silver Lining<strong>_

The full force of the NYPD. She had said. Was, _is_... going to come crashing down on Vales and his Mexican mob. And when that happens, it will send the city into chaos. _She _is the singular domino. And if tipped the right way, then the whole line, the entire investigation and everyone involved will be turned on their heads.

She'll say it again, "I'm going to need him."

"Then you have to show him," Dr. Burke replies evenly.

Kate nods her head, looking up from the coffee cup clutched in both hands. "I have..."

"How so?"

We get what we are given, but it's how we choose to use it, that makes the difference. Castle had chosen to go his own way, to shadow another detective, and Kate decided to leave him to it. She gave him his space since it was what he clearly needed. All the while she didn't just sit idly by and watch him risk his life. He wasn't taking emotional risks, that's for sure.. but he did walk blindly into danger without her.

She couldn't let him do that. Not after that look she saw on his face. The look of someone who came to realize that it's not all just fun in games.. and that without her, taking those risks just might not have been worth it.

"I know that I will have to do more, be less subtle about it...but I did stand beside him, though he didn't know it. He asked for help.. even in his own selfish need.. and I .. I couldn't say no...and in doing so.. I risked by job."

It seems to be the theme of her existence. Risk taking, putting her life on the line... along with the job that had so long ago made her believe this is who she is. But now.. as she sits here once again in Dr. Burke's office, she also realizes, that even her job is expendable. Or at least...it's becoming more and more apparent to her, despite her lack of being able to fully let go.

"He didn't ask you to."

She may not know exactly who she is without it, but now that she's ready to try and find out...It's _him _she's now unsure of. Kate Beckett has always kept herself behind the vale. Protected herself from the feelings in which he has evoked in her...Her heart is on her sleeve, it's just about clutched in her hand and slowly extending towards him.

"I know... He said he would _never _ask me to."

And yet the way he has been acting...her arm is frozen mid way. Not only is he not ready, but he's more than unattached from her. It's like he's punishing her...

"Maybe that's the thing."

"What?" She almost snaps at him.

"That he would never ask you too... in saying so...even in your less than stable relationship, he's still involved."

She bites her lip. But can she rely on him? As he seems to blindly lean on her whether he knows it or not.

"I don't know."

There is a coming storm...She's going to need him now more than ever. Like she had promised long ago, she wants him to be beside her when she is forced to weather this upcoming battle.

For _he _is the only one who can equip her with the right necessities.

And that is hope.

Because without it...Kate sees no other reason to come out the other side a victor. Roy could be wrong...There may only be battles. But it's how we come out of them that determines how we live thereafter. Whether we choose to believe it or not. There is always a silver lining. And in that, Kate chooses to believe that that safe haven, is Castle.

"Then why is he doing this?" She slaps one hand on her knee, her voice about ready to give out. She just doesn't understand...

"Good question..."

Kate stands up, giving him a glare before pacing about the room. She's losing her focus... the visions she's set out for herself are slipping away. The product of the all this healing, and all this time...And up until her minor set back...she's used that to drive her.

"Kate, _I_ don't have these answers. I'm not Castle...only _he _can tell you what you want to know."

"I know!" She exclaims, dropping her hands to her sides, nearly forgetting her coffee, which she then brings up to her mouth."..It's just.." She lets it back down. "So hard to approach him when he _blatantly _pushes me away." She forces her arms out in frustration.

"You're losing patience." He says after a moment and she sighs falling back onto the armrest.. "It's understandable."

"I'm ready.. I've _been_ ready...and now he's not and it's just so.. frustrating...it's...painful." She's up again, "it's like... before... being around him when he had been so _obvious_ and It's not like.. it's not like I didn't _know_." She says fisting her hand into her hair. "But now that _I'm _putting myself out there for him.. he doesn't see it."

Dr. Burke watches until she stops moving around so frantically, "speak his language."

"Write him a book?" She scoffs, folding her arms and pitching her hip to one side as she halts aside her chair.

Dr. Burke laughs. "No, just...find a way to talk to him, the only way _he _knows how to listen."

"You're telling me.." She points at herself. "To use my words..." She nods once as if it's absurd, but then falls silent as she ponders. "But we aren't in sync anymore."

"No.. but you are both very good at saying things, without actually _saying _them."

It's true... she can't deny it as she lets her shoulders sag and falls back into her chair. They may have lost the banter... the sync of their daily lives.. but they _do _have subtext.

For everything they do, even the things they don't do, and everything they say, or can't say... is _something_.. and something is better than nothing...and once again, Kate can see the bigger picture. See the place she wants to be, she just needs to convince them they they are in fact on the same page.

And that he is her silver lining.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>

** The other one will be up this weekend for _undead again,_ and then we will be coming to a close for this fic once the finally airs...**


	24. Let it Wash Away

**I skipped_ U_**_**ndead again.**_**. and went straight for **_**Always.**_ **This takes place anywhere you see fit. Either before or after the swing.**  
><strong>..obviously.. spoilers if you have not seen it.. but really.. who wouldn't have seen it?<strong>

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><p><em><strong>Let it Wash Away<strong>_

We are not born into the roles we think we must play, we are _misguided. _

The rain beats outside the large windows of Dr. Burke's office. Lightning flashes into the well lit room, casting the faintest of sharp blue light upon the windowsill.

Is this the storm she's been waiting for? Because from where she's standing, drenched in the doorway. She feels more like its the beginning rather than the inevitable end.

Looking out at the rain, hearing the thunder rack through her entire body, the lightning lighting up her life, Kate realizes this is not the epicenter of tragedy.

It's a cleanse.

She's had an epiphany...and for once in her life, she will embrace it wholeheartedly.

The feeling is altogether different from the last time she set foot in here.

Driven by the need to escape the things they never talked about, and were now laid out. And when she could not face them...he said they were over... he couldn't do it anymore.

Is she a bad person for being selfish, for healing?

Kate just wanted to hide from the pain of his betrayal... Is she not allowed to block it out? Can she not hide away from it. Create a shell for which she's lived and breathed in for so long even if it's frowned upon by everyone else?

But that is what had brought her here _before._

The way she once choose to act around her fears, her weaknesses,. Perhaps...had made her more ignorant...blind because of what these things made her who she thought she was.

But that's not _Kate _anymore.

And she couldn't let herself slip back into that...

Barging into Dr. Burke office after Castle said she was done.. sent her back there. She had slipped up.. but in her mind, she had been ready for this for 13 years and he sat on her leads. Kept them for a whole year. She was trying not to drown in it...trying to stay level headed.. and then he...at the time.. his words.. his beautiful words...no matter how much they gripped at her heart.. Kate could not let them steer her away from what she had worked so hard for.

So what if she has walls?

If he can hide behind the child within, why can't she barricade herself in?

Is the very act of burying our true emotions away from those that count, the worst act of selfishness?

It shouldn't be about what we don't share. It shouldn't make us pigheaded or stubborn. It shouldn't label us any of these things at all.

So what if she was damaged goods.

So what if they had gotten lost. They could find their way back.

She's been trying to find her way back...and standing here now...

She regrets it.

Letting herself be manipulated by her past. Using the lesson that her mother taught her about truth, to guide her in the wrong direction.

Truth conquers _all things._

Black and white, wrong and right.

But where is everything else? How do we weed out what's true to us, and what is only engraved into our minds as the right path?

It wasn't the truth of her mother's murder that she needed to find, but the workings of her own heart.

And she's been hiding from it.

Kate hung literally at the edge of a precipice. And it wasn't the act of finding the closure for her mother, her point of living isn't about that anymore. But the revelation that took over her every being, has helped Kate Beckett finally, and completely opened her eyes.

_Castle_

What she regrets more...was not hearing him..not _seeing _him. And she couldn't lose her grip on that ledge, or everything would have been for nothing. If that happened, if she fell.. then she couldn't fix the time wasted.

Hanging by her fingers on that rooftop...She could finally hear him. He was all she could think about... for the only place she wanted to fall, was in his arms. To quench the yearning and the pain they both had caused one another.

She fought so hard. Not for her mother's sake...but her own. For _him._

The longing was too great to give up.

She could fix it. She was ready...Maybe she's always been ready. But she had been too blind to see it. She had let her past drive her heart in the wrong direction.

His voice, his touch...everything _him_. He was there. In her head, her heart, her veins. He was guiding her back, keeping her fighting. She held on with the knowledge that it didn't matter what he did, because he hadn't betrayed her.

We are all souls searching in this vast world. We seek that in which we do not understand. And in that world: there are ideas that are thrust upon us as if it's the only thing there is. And because of it, we force ourselves to believe what becomes the norm.

But, where do we draw the line?

Or is everything we stand for, an illusion?

Kate shakes her head at herself, leaning there in the doorway...She only has herself to blame for the things she couldn't see.

And because of it, she had betrayed _herself._

Damn it all if she wasn't going to live long enough to make it up to herself, and the one person who's always been there for her.

In that moment before she lost her grip, but not her will... It wasn't Ryan's hand that pulled her up. He wasn't the one who saved her. It was Castle.

"I'm done." Kate says, holding her mother's ring in her hand, the noose free from her neck.

And for the first time in her life, as Dr. Burke nods to her, a smile a lot like pride on his usually stoic face, Kate Beckett feels free.

Turning away, Kate feels a weight being lifted. She no longer feels misguided, only that she is finally heading in the right direction. And as she once again steps out into the pouring rain, she lets everything that had ever held her back in the past, wash away.

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><p><strong>Everything you know, from this point on.. and won't need further explanation...I could never do this show justice..especially after "always." But I do hope you enjoyed my rendition of what what went on in her head this season. Thank you to those who stuck with this all the way through... Have a great summer!<strong>


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